
''■-..•....--■ 

Grasshopper 
Green's 
Garden 




Julia 7\iuau,sta Sdhujarl; 




Class 






GopK-ngk^ ?y£ 



: :?.-;:--:.- ::_?*:■ s-r 







"he was a real butterfly now, in a garden world of leaves.' 

[Frontispiece. Seep. 88 



GRASSHOPPER 
GREEN'S GARDEN 

THE STORY OF SOME 
WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

A Nature Reader jor Elementary Schools 



By 

JULIA AUGUSTA SCHWARTZ 

Author of "Wilderness Babies," etc. 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1910 









Copyright, 1909, 
By Little, Broths - , akd Compact. 

All rights reserved 



Gift 

Pnblv 

-H27 :9^2 



printers 
3. J. Pabkhill & Co., Bosioy, C. S. A. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

I. The Lucky Little Grasshopper . . 1 

II. The Adventures of an Earthworm . 23 

III. Mischievous Madam Mosquito ... 47 

IV. The Most Beautiful One in the Garden 69 

V The Untidy Fly 99 

VI. The Spider Who Would A-Hunting Go . 119 

VII. This is the House the Ant Built . . 145 

VIII. How Doth the Little Busy Bee . 173 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

" He was a real Butterfly now, in a garden 

world of leaves " Frontispiece 

" Out of the crack peered two round eyes in 

a funny little face " 7 

" Then he stretched out his head, now this 

way, now that " ...... 34 

" Her skin split, and out of the crack crawled 

a grown up mosquito " 60 

" In a hammock under a maple two children 

were swinging " 65 

" Then he crept out on a juicy leaf and ate 

AND ATE " 84 

" He then took a few sucks at a dead leetle " 117 
" For two or three weeks the young spiders 
rode with their mother wherever she 

WENT " . 130 

" There were perils in the air as well as on 

the ground " 141 

" Then came the nip, nip, from behind " . 149 

" Another bee crawled up and clung to her, 

and another caught hold of that one " . 188 



THE LUCKY LITTLE GRASS 
HOPPER 



, 



WONDERFUL 
LITTLE LIVES 



THE LUCKY LITTLE GRASS- 
HOPPER 

I. GRASSHOPPER GREEK LEARNS TO JUMP 

THERE was once a beautiful gar- 
den, and in the garden grew all 
sorts of delightful things. Black- 
berry vines spread in a tangle over the stone 
wall. An old apple tree stood beside a sum- 
mer-house covered with climbing roses. A 
row of currant bushes stretched along the 
grape arbor. Violets and hepaticas bloomed 
beneath the cherry trees. Peach trees lifted 
their low branches in sheltered corners. Li- 
lacs bordered the gravel paths, and peonies 



4 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

were planted here and there on the sunny- 
lawn. 

But trees and flowers were not the only 
delightful things that grew in the garden. 
Ah, no, indeed! This garden was the home 
of many wonderful little creatures. But- 
terflies hovered over the flowers. Bees 
hummed about the blossoming fruit trees. 
Ants hurried to and fro around their brown 
hills at the edge of the path, and pretty 
spiders with glistening eyes spun their 
silken webs from leaf to leaf. 

Filmy-winged mosquitoes flitted out at 
twilight. Now and then a fly on its way 
to the cottage at one end of the garden 
rested for a moment on a budding twig. 
A fat toad blinked solemnly out from its 
hole under a stone. A nestful of young 
birds twittered in every tree overhead, and 
in the ground under foot hundreds of 
earthworms patiently burrowed their way 
hither and thither, making fresh soil for 
the garden. 

Oh, this garden was a pleasant place in 



THE LUCKY GRASSHOPPER 5 

the gay spring weather, when Grasshopper 
Green came there to live! Now where do 
you suppose he came from? He came 
right up out of the ground. 

All night long the warm spring rain had 
been falling gently. It trickled over the 
young leaves on the trees. It sent tiny 
beads of water rolling down the new blades 
of grass, and it soaked into the loose brown 
soil of the freshly spaded flower-beds. 

Before dawn the clouds drifted away, 
leaving the sky clear blue. When the sun 
rose, it twinkled upon many a new little 
leaf that had uncurled during the night. 
The grass had grown longer. The cherry 
trees had budded. The violets were almost 
in bloom. Here and there, in the brown 
beds, the stem of a seedling was pulling 
its tip of folded leaflets from the soil. 

On the lawn beyond the path a robin 
redbreast was hunting for earthworms. He 
cocked his head on one side and stood still 
for a moment, with his bright eyes search- 
ing the ground. Then he gave a quick 



6 WOXDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

little run across the grass and darted his 
beak down to catch a mouthful of break- 
fast. 

Presently he scuttled across to the let- 
tuce bed, and braced himself to drag out 
a worm that had hooked its tail bristles into 
the top of its burrow. It was lucky that 
he had his back to the path, and could not 
see something that began to stir at the edge 
of the gravel. 

Something alive was pushing up from 
under the ground. It was not a plant, 
because a plant either comes pricking 
straight through with the pointed tip of 
its rolled up leaves, like a spear of corn, 
or else it heaves up its humped stem slowly 
and steadily, as a bean seedling does. But 
this was different. A bit of the hard soil 
rose slowly in a tiny arch and then sud- 
denly cracked open. Out of the crack 
peered two round eyes in a funny little 
face. It was a baby grasshopper. 

The mother grasshopper had laid her 
eggs just under the surface of the soil the 



THE LUCKY GRASSHOPPER 



autumn before. Now, when the warm 
spring days had come, her babies began to 




hatch out and push blindly up toward the 
air and light. 

This lively fellow kicked his way out, 
waved the two thread-like feelers in front 
of his eyes, lifted his two front legs to wipe 



8 WOXDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

:ke :;i:~ :::::; his zaee. shook Iks two middle 
legs clean, and scraped his two hind legs 
over his Then he started out to see 

:he "vrld. 

As I have told you before, it was lucky 
f:r him that :ke re bin was sc busy swallow- 
ing the worm that he did not pay any at- 
tention to the newcomer. All birds are 
:'::".:: :: vrasskr-ppers -'-- breakfast — or 
for dinner or any ::ker real. d:ub:Iess. 

After resting a moment to breathe the 
air into his wee body, the young grasshop- 
per began to walk forward with all six of 
his legs till he reached the grassy border of 
the letruce irk Of course he was looking 
for semethir.g t: eat: that is what every 
;:aby v-ar_:s the very rrst thing. "When Iks 
feelers touched the nearest blade of grass, 
he gave them a twitch and went climbing 
straight up :ke stem 

Xov- hjw :;: y:u suppose he could do 
that without slipping down? It was be- 
cause each :: his :-: had two claws, and 
between the two claws was a flat little pad 



THE LUCKY GRASSHOPPER 9 

fringed with hairs. When he climbed up 
the grass blade, he stuck his claws into 
it. From the tip of every hair on each pad 
oozed a drop of sticky stuff that fastened 
his foot firm till he was ready to lift it to 
take another step. 

So up the grass he walked, and began 
to eat. His mouth was on the under side 
of his big little head, ready to bite off and 
chew whatever he found good to eat. The 
most convenient thing to eat was the very 
grass on which he was standing. He 
opened his strong little jaws, took a bite 
and chewed it fine and swallowed it. 

He kept on biting out pieces and chew- 
ing them up fine and swallowing them till 
he had eaten a scallop out of the edge of 
the leaf. Then he walked on farther and 
bit out another scallop. He was having 
the best kind of a time, with his jaws going 
chump, chump, chump. The more he ate, 
the sooner he would grow to be a big grass- 
hopper with wings as well as legs. Even 
as a baby he looked a good deal like his 



i; WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

father, except that he was so much smaller 
and had no wings at all. 

1hd r"ening came, he swung around 
underneath the blade of grass and glued 
his feet fast so that he might not fall off 
while he was asleep- Early in the morning 
he woke up slowly, but he did not move 
for quite a while. The cool air made him 
fed stiff at first. Or it may be that his wee 
jaws ached somewhat after his busy chew- 
ing of the day before. 

By and by, as the sun's rays became 
warmer, he stirred drowsily and stretched 
oat his long hind legs, combing one with 
the other. Yes, indeed, he could really use 
them like combs, for the longest slender 
joint of each one had a row of sharp spines 
Eke the teeth of a comb. He could rub 
:":fz: :^er his sziiill ^7f~:: :•:•;: 7 ::•:. brisl- 
ing off every speck of dost. They were 
remarkable legs. Only fancy ! As soon as 
he grew op, he. would be able to sing with 
them. Bat best and most important of all 
to him was their power of jumping. Lit- 



THE LUCKY GRASSHOPPER 11 

tie Grasshopper Green was the champion 
jumper of the whole garden. 

However on this particular morning he 
did not yet know that he could jump. He 
had never even tried it. He just went 
crawling over the grass-blade step by step, 
with his hind legs folded so that the knees 
hunched high above his back. His knees 
bent in the opposite direction from the 
way ours do. His knees were the best 
kind for him, and ours are the best kind 
for us. 

When he reached the tip of the leaf he 
drew both legs close to his body and then 
suddenly straightened them out. Away he 
went flying through the air as if he had 
been shot from a spring-board. 

That must have been surprising. He 
landed with a bump right in the middle 
of the lettuce bed. It may be that the jar 
made him a bit dizzy at first. As soon as 
his head felt steady again, he found a ten- 
der young lettuce plant just under his 
mouth. He opened his jaws and took a 



12 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

big bite. Oh! but it tasted delicious. So 
he ate and ate till he ate it all up, 'way 
down to the ground. 

Then he hunted for another plant, and 
ate that too. Some of his many brothers 
and sisters were already eating the lettuce. 
There was hardly enough to go around, 
for the plants had not had time to grow 
much yet. Before long every bit of green 
leaf had been eaten up by the hungry small 
creatures. 

When Grasshopper Green could not find 
another bite anywhere near, he drew up 
his hind legs close to his body, and then 
quickly straightened them out. Away he 
sailed through the air again. This time 
he came down ker-plunk on a hard pebble 
in the middle of the garden path. If he 
had held his legs stiff and straight, instead 
of bending them at their limber joints, he 
might have broken a pair or two. You 
know how it shakes you up and down your 
spine if you land without bending your 
knees after taking a jump. You have to 



THE LUCKY GRASSHOPPER 13 

be taught how to jump in the right way, 
but the grasshopper knew how from the 
very first day of his life. 

After touching the pebble with his feel- 
ers and deciding that it was not good to 
eat, he jumped again. This time, though 
he jumped in the right way, he came down 
in the wrong place. Oh, it was about the 
most dangerous spot for him in the whole 
garden. It was right in front of a hen 
that had flown over the wall and was 
scratching in the path. 

There was a surprised cluck followed 
by a whirr of feathers and a scamper of 
two stout feet. Her wide yellow beak 
came swooping downward. He did not 
stop to think. He did not know who she 
was or what she wanted, for he had never 
met a hen before. But he felt the rush of 
air as she scuttled toward him, and he drew 
up his legs exactly in time, because some- 
how he thought that he had better be go- 
ing. Away he shot over her head just as 
her beak snapped shut on a mouthful of 



14 WOXDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

gravel snatched from the spot where he had 
been standing half a moment before. 

II. GBASSHOPPEE GREEN LEAEXS TO FLY 

Soon after this narrow escape, a strange 
thing happened. This was the way of it. 
He kept on eating and eating and eating, 
and the more he ate. the fatter he grew. 
The fatter he grew, the tighter his skin 
seemed. The skin of an 'insect is made of 
horny stuff that never grows after it once 
hardens on the outside of its small owner. 
Naturally the bigger he grew inside his 
skin., the more pinched and uncomfortable 
he felt. Finally — what do you suppose? 
— his skin cracked and split open. He 
crawled outside of his own skin and pushed 
it off all his legs. There he was in a soft 
new skin that had been growing under- 
neath the old one. 

The new skin was bright and fresh, and 
plenty big enough to fit without squeezing 
him. He waited a few minutes till it had 
hardened in the air. because it was danger- 



THE LUCKY GRASSHOPPER 15 

ous for him to go out to eat while his skin 
was still soft. If he had done that, he 
might have hurt himself by bumping 
against a stick or a stone. Or a sharp tip 
of a grass blade might have pricked clear 
through his body when he came down after 
a long jump. He never knew where he 
would land. 

He wore this new skin till he grew too 
big for it. Then it split as the first had 
done, and he crawled out in a newer, larger 
suit. He kept on in this way for two or 
three months till he was entirely grown up. 
Meanwhile he had changed his skin five or 
six times. After the first change, his wings 
began to grow. Each new skin had larger 
wings, till at last they were big enough to 
use in flying. His body was grayish green, 
and his wings were brown. 

Ah, but that was delightful! It was bet- 
ter than jumping. The first time he tried 
them, perhaps he meant only to jump. He 
drew up his long hind legs and straight- 
ened them out as usual. When he was high 



16 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

in the air, somehow his wings spread open 
and away he went whirring for the longest 
jump he ever had taken yet. 

He really had two pairs of wings. One 
pair were straight and stiff and hard. 
While he was flying, this pair were spread 
out and hooked so that they would stay 
open. Beneath them were two gauzy 
wings. He flew with these, beating them 
to and fro very fast. When he stopped 
moving them, they folded up like fans 
close to his body. The two stiff wings 
unhooked and shut down close over the 
flying wings. These wing-covers, as they 
are called, kept the gauzy wings from get- 
ting scratched and torn. 

One summer afternoon, when the garden 
lay drowsing in the sunshine and even the 
birds were quiet among the branches over- 
head, suddenly the young grasshopper be- 
gan to sing. Shrill and loud his song rose 
in the stillness, — fizz, fizz, fizz ! Then it 
stopped all at once. Maybe he was aston- 
ished at himself. He did not sing from his 



THE LUCKY GRASSHOPPER 17 

mouth and throat. He was only standing 
in a tuft of grass and rubbing the broad 
joint of his long hind legs against the edge 
of his folded wing-covers. He may have 
been lonely there all by himself. He sang 
so that some other grasshopper might know 
where to find him. 

But his song was so loud that something 
else heard him too. A bird darted down 
from the boughs of a maple tree and flut- 
tered above the spot where Grasshopper 
Green was singing. She wanted to catch 
him to feed to her nestful of hungry young 
ones. She went hopping around, hunting 
for him. 

Grasshopper Green saw her shadow flit- 
ting hither and thither. He could hear the 
rustle of her wings and the patter of her 
feet. He stopped singing and sat so still 
that he seemed like a bit of wood or grass 
himself. Perhaps she would not notice 
him, for a bird cannot see motionless things 
nearly so well as those that are moving. 

But nearer and nearer she hopped, now 



18 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

pecking at a twig, now twitching at a leaf, 
now cocking her head to look under a 
drooping blade of green. Tap, tap, tap! 
She was hammering at a pebble wedged 
among the roots of the sod. A small spider 
ran from beneath it and scampered farther 
into the fairy wilderness of tall thick grasses 
where the grasshopper was hiding. Mother 
Bird darted after him, stretching out her 
neck and opening her bill. 

Grasshopper Green heard her coming. 
He was so frightened that he could not 
keep still another instant. He drew up his 
legs suddenly. Ah! she had spied him. 
That small ridged bump there was not a 
twig at all. It was a fat, delicious little 
grasshopper. Forgetting about the fleeing 
many-legged brown spider, she made a 
swift dash toward the juicy morsel within 
easy reach. 

Snap! She had missed him as he jumped. 
But a moment later she was flying after 
him. Swoop! She had caught him by the 
tip of one whirring wing. Flap, flap, flap! 



THE LUCKY GRASSHOPPER 19 

he beat the other to and fro as he twisted 
and squirmed to get free. It was lucky 
for him that these gauzy wings were so 
delicate and easily torn. Before Mother 
Bird could seize a firmer grip, the sharp 
edges of her beak had snipped through the 
frail bit of gauze. Down dropped Grass- 
hopper Green to the ground and quickly 
slid under a leaf to hide. 

Just then the biggest baby bird in the 
nest in the maple gave such a shrill peep 
that his mother flew home as fast as she 
could to see what was the matter. Really 
the only trouble was that the little fellow 
thought he was starving and could not wait 
another minute for something to eat. It 
would have been better for him if he had 
kept quiet a moment longer till his mother 
had caught the grasshopper. Now, after 
losing so much time, she could not find him, 
though she hunted under every leaf near 
the spot where he had dropped. He had 
already taken a fresh jump upward and 
gone sailing away toward the row of cur- 



20 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

rant bushes. His wings were quite as use- 
ful as before, even if one of them did have 
a ragged notch in its tip. 

All summer long Grasshopper Green 
lived in the beautiful garden. Every day 
was filled with exciting escapes. Many a 
time he was chased by a hungry bird, or 
snapped at by a greedy dragon-fly. More 
than once he just missed being gobbled 
down by the old toad that sat blinking in 
shady corners. Two or three times, after 
a joyous whirring flight above the flowers, 
he landed plump in the middle of a spider's 
thick silky web. He always managed to 
kick loose from the entangling threads be- 
fore the owner came hurrying to see what 
she had caught in her snare. 

He had a chance to get acquainted with 
all the small creatures who shared the gar- 
den with him. When he went walking, he 
could meet those who lived on the ground. 
When he went flying, he could see those 
who spent their time in the air. Sometimes 
he swung on a grass blade beside a hungry 



THE LUCKY GRASSHOPPER 21 

caterpillar. Sometimes he crawled from 
leaf to leaf of a plant where ants were hur- 
rying busily to and fro. 

Once he met a little cousin of his own 
who happened to come jumping over the 
stone wall on his way toward a meadow 
near a pond some distance farther along. 
This visitor's slender body was such a bright 
green that it made our garden grasshopper 
look a dusty brown beside him. He was 
different, too, in having much longer feel- 
ers. Perhaps he told how cool and delight- 
ful it was to live amid the tangled grasses 
in the damp meadow instead of in the gar- 
den. 

But Grasshopper Green was too happy 
where he was to think of leaving his home. 
Very likely he might have felt different 
about it if he had not had plenty to eat. 
Some years, when thousands and thousands 
of his brothers hatch out all at once in the 
mountain parks, they cannot find enough 
food there. So, after devouring every leaf, 
they rise in the air and fly in an immense 



22 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

whirring cloud toward the green farms on 
the prairies. They march on over the land, 
like a hungry army, leaving the trees 
stripped and the fields bare behind them. 

Our grasshopper, however, was almost 
the only one who lived to grow up in the 
garden this summer, and his small jaws 
could not do much harm. Xo wonder he 
was contented! Everv dav brought some 
new excitement. Xow he jumped this way 
to find a tender leaf to eat. Xow he 
jumped that way to avoid being eaten him- 
self. Hither and thither he flew, this min- 
ute hopping into danger, and the next min- 
ute hopping out of it again. Indeed, you 
see, Grasshorjper Green was a lucky young 
fellow to have been born in this beautiful 
garden. 



II 

THE ADVENTURES OF AN 
EARTHWORM 



^ 



II 



THE ADVENTURES OF AN 
EARTHWORM 

I. HOW HE WALKED WITHOUT LEGS 

ONE evening when Grasshopper 
Green was fast asleep, with his feet 
glued safely to the under side of 
>a grapevine leaf, a new little creature came 
squirming up out of the ground below. It 
was a baby earthworm. He had hatched 
from a tiny egg buried in the soil. The 
first thing he did was to twist and wriggle 
this way and that as he pushed his pointed 
head up through the soft earth to the air 
above. 

After he reached the top, he raised his 
head and swayed it to and fro to find out 
what the world was like. And now what 
do you think? He could not see a single 



26 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

thing, or hear a single sound. He had no 
eyes or ears or nose. He had no arms or 
legs. He was only a soft round worm with 
a bit of a mouth on the under side of his 
pointed head. 

In the darkness he kept swaying to and 
fro. He could feel the damp air against 
his skin. Some of the air soaked into his 
body through tiny holes in his skin, ever 
so much tinier than the prick of a pin. The 
fresh air kept his blood red and pure. It 
made him feel happy and lively. He moved 
his head faster and pulled his tail out 
of the ground. He was ready to hunt for 
something to eat. 

So he set out on his travels. Travelling 
was slow work for him, because he had no 
real legs to use in walking. The best he 
could do was to wriggle over the ground 
with the help of some stiff little bristles 
that grew on his body. His body was 
made up of many joints or rings set close 
together. On each ring grew eight of these 
bristles. 



THE EARTHWORM 27 

When he wanted to travel, he stretched 
out his head as far as he could, and hooked 
the bristles nearest his head into the ground. 
Then he unhooked the bristles that had been 
holding him steady at his other end, and 
drew his body up thick and short. When 
he was as short as he could be, he dug his 
tail bristles into the ground to hold him 
steady again, while he stretched his body 
out long and thin. When he was as long 
as he could stretch, he dug in his front 
bristles again, and drew himself up short 
just as before. It was too hard work to 
be very much fun, you see. 

Luckily for this wee worm, his mother 
had laid her eggs in the middle of a bed 
of onions beside the grape arbor. He had 
hardly wriggled two inches before he al- 
most touched the stem of a young onion 
plant. He stopped and began to move his 
head to and fro, as if he were sniffing the 
onion. Perhaps he smelled it through his 
skin. When at last he really rubbed 
against the plant, he seized a bit between 



28 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

his upper and lower lip, and sucked it into 
his mouth. Ah, but it tasted delicious! So 
he swallowed it down as quickly as he could, 
and pinched off another bit of onion with 
his soft lips. 

He swallowed each mouthful by squeez- 
ing it down his throat. He had no teeth 
for chewing, but after the food had been 
swallowed, it was ground fine between 
specks of stones inside him. Very likely 
he had swallowed these specks of stones 
while he was pushing his way up from his 
empty egg shell to the air above. Now 
they were exactly what he needed for 
grinding up his food. 

Of course he could eat much faster than 
if he had been obliged to stop and chew 
every bite. He ate and ate and ate, and 
his little body stretched out like India rub- 
ber to hold the food. When he was so 
round and tight and full that he felt almost 
as if he were going to burst, he stopped 
eating and rested for a while. 

The baby earthworm lay quiet and happy 



THE EARTHWORM 29 

under the onion plant. He was happy be- 
cause he had eaten all he wanted, and be- 
cause the dewy night air felt pleasant on 
his skin. 

Far above him the stars twinkled in the 
sky; but he could not see them. A breeze 
whispered among the leaves of the trees in 
the garden; a bird overhead chirped sleep- 
ily; the grasses rustled here and there under 
the foot of some small hurrying creature. 
But the baby earthworm could not hear 
these sounds. He felt the earth under him, 
and the air around him, and the food in- 
side him. And just then he did not care 
about anything else in the whole, wide, 
wonderful, beautiful world. 

While he rested, the food inside his body 
was ground up fine and began to be 
changed into blood. The new blood made 
him grow a little larger. Even as a baby, 
you know, he looked like the grown-up 
earthworms, except that his body had not 
so many rings. As he grew, he would have 
more rings; for the last ring at the end of 



30 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

his tail would divide into two rings. Pretty 
soon the last ring of the two new ones 
would divide into two. and then the last 
one of those two. and so on till he was all 
grown up. 

On this very first night of his life, how- 
ever, he did not grow fast enough to get 
a new ring right away. There would be 
plenty of time for that later. Now, as 
soon as he felt like working after his first 
meal of vegetables, he began to hunt around 
for a place to live. 

II. HOW HE DUG HIS HOUSE 

In some wonderful way he knew just 
what to do, though he had never been 
taught. He had never watched any other 
worm dig a hole in which to live. And yet 
he set straight to work without pausing to 
think or plan. Indeed he could not think 
even if he tried to do so. because he did not 
have that kind of a brain. He simply went 
on without thinking and did the things that 



THE EARTHWORM 31 

all earthworms do naturally because their 
parents have always done the same things. 

First he stretched out his head and felt 
of the ground, now here, now there. He 
was hunting for a firm smooth spot where 
he might begin to dig. When he found it, 
he put his mouth down close to the earth, 
opened his lips, pinched off a mouthful, and 
swallowed it. Wasn't that an astonishing 
way to dig! Then he took another bite, 
and another, and another, till he was full 
of dirt. He had eaten a hole in the ground. 
When he was so full that he could not swal- 
low any more, he pressed his body small so 
that the dirt was squeezed out. He let this 
curlycue of earth fall outside, at the top 
of his hole. It was the shape of a tiny 
worm, and is called a worm-cast. 

He dug all the rest of the night as hard 
as he could, because he was in a hurry to 
have a home of his own. Once in a while 
he found a speck of good food in the 
mouthfuls of earth. This food stayed in 
his body and helped to make new blood 



32 WOXLERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

and give him strength to go on working. 
At intervals, very likely, he crawled to the 
onion plant and took a bite of it to cheer 
him on in his labor. He just loved onion! 

At last, when his hole was almost deep 
enough to hide in. the sun rose. The wee 
worm had that minute carried a load of 
earth to the top and was emptying it out- 
side. A level golden ray of sunlight shot 
across the sparkling dewdrops and glistened 
on the busy little brown body of the baby 
earthworm. Doubtless he had no idea what 
was causing him to feel so queer and fever- 
ish, for he had never before been in the sun- 
shine, you know. He shrugged his ringed 
body and squirmed and twisted his tail, and 
lifted Ms head and swayed it to and fro. 
Then he wriggled back into the hole, and 
cuddled down as close as he could in the 
cool moist earth. 

But that did not do him much good, for 
the sim rose higher and shone into the top 
of his little cave. In the queerest way he 
knew, without being told, exactly what he 



THE EARTHWORM 33 

ought to do next. He reached out of the 
hole with his pointed head and took hold of 
a piece of dead grass with his lips. Then 
he pulled and pulled till he had dragged 
the grass to the opening of his hole, or 
burrow, as it is called. He pulled the 
pointed tip in as far as it would go. It 
covered the top so that the sunlight could 
not shine in. Finally, in his cool shady 
home the wise little worm curled down 
cosily and rested all day long. 

Outside in the garden, the sun shone and 
the birds sang; the butterflies fluttered 
their lovely wings and the bees buzzed over 
the flowers. The grasshoppers swung on 
the grasses, and the spiders spun webs or 
went hunting. Under the ground the little 
earthworm, hidden in his new burrow, which 
he had dug all himself, lay quiet and waited 
for the dewy dark night. 

When daylight faded and the air grew 
damp and cool, the young worm woke up 
and came squirming outdoors. The first 
thing he did was to hook the bristles at the 



34 



WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 



end of his tail into the wall of his burrow. 
Then he stretched out his head., now this 
way., now that way. till he touched a leaf 
of onion. After eating all he wanted, he 
wriggled back into his hole and began to 




^ff^ 



dig it bigger. He rubbed the inside of his 
house smooth with his slimy body. Some- 
thing like glue oozed from his skin and 
covered the walls with a firm lining. When 
he had finished it, he had the cosiest kind 
of a little home, just large enough for one. 



ni. HOW HE ESCAPED WITH HIS LIFE 

Nothing very exciting happened for a 
while. All day long he hid in his burrow, 



THE EARTHWORM 35 

and all night long he worked and ate. 
Sometimes he dragged pieces of leaves in- 
side his hole and ate them there. As he 
grew bigger and longer, he had to make 
his hole bigger and longer, too. And the 
longer he grew, the farther he could stretch 
to reach his supper. But by and by came 
a time when he had eaten every bit of green 
leaf within reach. 

That night he stretched out his head as 
far as he possibly could stretch in a circle 
all around his hole. He could not find a 
single bite of anything good to eat. So 
what do you think that reckless little worm 
did then? He unhooked his tail from the 
top of the burrow, and wriggled away over 
the ground till he touched another onion 
plant. Then he ate and ate and ate till he 
nearly burst, for he was dreadfully hungry. 
After resting a time, he wanted to return 
to his home. He squirmed off in a hurry, 
but he never, never found his way back 
again. He had lost the first little burrow 
that he ever dug in his life. 



36 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

S j the next thing he had to do was to go 
to work and dig a new one. This new hole 
was like the other, except that it was larger 
and deeper. He dug it deeper, because the 
ground was getting dryer than it had been 
earlier in the su mme r. There were not so 
many showers to keep the soil at the sur- 
face soft and moist. It made him feel sick 
to swallow dry soil. So he burrowed down 
deep where the earth was damp and pleas- 
ant to his skin. 

One morning he had a terrible adven- 
ture. It was just at sunrise, and he had 
crawled into his burrow and lay resting 
near the top. The night had been rather 
chilly, and he felt a little numb. Though 
he certainly hated to be too hot. he also 
hated to be too cold. He was waiting per- 
haps for a bit of warmth from the sim to 
steal over him before he wriggled down to 
the deep end of the hole. Or it may 
be that he liked to stay near the dewy leaf 
that covered his door. Whatever was his 
reason, he was lying there quiet and com- 



THE EARTHWORM 37 

fortable, when suddenly something hap- 
pened. 

A quick patter of little claws, a swift 
twitch of the dewy leaf, and a robin's beak 
darted into the hole like lightning and 
snapped at the worm's soft head! That 
was a narrow escape. He had wriggled 
out of reach just in time. He squirmed on 
down to the bottom of his burrow as fast 
as he could go, and stayed there curled up 
safe and still till after the birds had all gone 
to sleep at night. Then he could come out 
and hunt for his own supper without get- 
ting into danger of being gobbled down by 
a hungry robin. 

Anybody would think that such an ex- 
perience would teach a worm to stay hid- 
den at home in the daytime. But one queer 
thing about worms, and many other crea- 
tures, too, is that they never learn anything 
new no matter how long they live. When 
they are born they know as much as their 
parents do, and they can never be taught 
anything more. 



38 WOXDERFUL LITTLE LIVE 

You could never imagine how foolishly 
that little worm acted one day. It had been 
raining all night in the garden. As soon 
as he knew that a shower was falling out- 
side, that silly worm came wriggling out as 
fast as he could wriggle, and suuirmed 
away over the wet ground. He did not 
even try to stay near enough so that he 
might possibly find his home again if he 
hunted carefully all around. He just went 
crawling on and on and on, without think- 
ing what might happen when morning 
should dawn. He enjoyed being out in the 
rain. 

He crawled across the onion-bed to a 
row of cabbages. There he stopped to take 
a few nibbles. Then he hurried on over 
the gravel path. On his way, he passed a 
drowned fly., and ate several mouthfuls of 
it, for he was fond of fresh meat. Once or 
twice he felt a soft round body exactly like 
his own wriggling against him, or under or 
over him. The rain had brought other 
earthworms out of their holes that night, 



THE EARTHWORM 39 

and started them on their reckless wander- 
ings. 

Finally the rain ceased, the clouds drifted 
apart, and the sun rose. Our little worm 
lay stretched out pale and thin on the path. 
He was no longer dark-colored, because he 
had swallowed no earth for hours. His 
skin was so clear that his two veins full of 
blood showed red inside his body. He was 
so tired that he could hardly move. 

But as the sunshine fell on him, he 
squirmed slowly on across the gravel, and 
dragged himself inch by inch on and on 
and on. He did not know what was ahead 
of him, or where he was going. All that 
he wanted was to wriggle somewhere out 
of the burning light and heat of the sun. 

It was lucky for him that he happened 
to crawl toward a spot of soft loose soil 
where a root of celery had been pulled up 
the day before. He pushed his head be- 
neath a wet lump of earth and drew the 
rest of his body on into the damp delight- 
ful dark little cave. There he rested all 



40 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

day. while out in the sunshine many other 
foolish worms draped themselves blindiv 
on in the glaring heat. Some were gobbled 
down bv hungrv birds, and others curled 
their aching little bodies round and round 
in tight coils, and lay still till they dried up 
and died. An earthworm cannot live a day 
in dry air. 

After this our voting worm dug another 
burrow for a new home. You see he really 
had to have a hiding-place to save him. from 
his enemies. He fa d shell to protect his 
soft body from being trampled on by ani- 
h a \pped up by a hungry bird. He 
had no teeth or sting with which to light. 
He had no legs that he could use in run- 
ning away from danger. The only thing 
he could do for safety was to hide in a hole. 

IV. HOW HE HELPED THE GAEDEX TO GROW 

And what do you suppose! Tins is most 
wonderful of all. Earthworm- help to 
make all the gardens in the world, because 
they dig so many holes. They help by 



THE EARTHWORM 41 

swallowing their bodies full of soil and car- 
rying it up to the top of the ground when 
they dig their burrows. This makes the 
soil fine and rich so that plants can grow 
in it. The leaves which they drag into their 
burrows and tear into shreds make the soil 
rich too. There are so many millions of 
worms working in the ground that all to- 
gether they dig up tons of earth and turn 
it over and mix it fine and make it rich. 

Besides this, the air from above moves 
through their winding burrows and keeps 
the soil loose and sweet. When rain falls, 
part of the water trickles down deeper be- 
cause of the holes. Some plants grow 
faster when their roots find the smooth lit- 
tle tunnels in which they may spread and 
branch. The deaf and dumb and blind lit- 
tle earthworm is the most useful of all the 
small creatures that live in the garden. 

When our young worm had finished his 
new home, very likely he felt that he was 
safe there at last. He was careful not to 
lie too near the top in the morning, when 



42 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

robins were out hunting for their break- 
fasts. He was particular to hook his tail 
fast to the wall of his burrow whenever he 
went out in the evening. But one night a 
still more frightful adventure happened to 
him. He was chased by a mole. 

It happened in this way. He had been 
working busily for hours in digging out a 
tiny room at the very bottom of his burrow. 
He wanted to get it ready for the winter, 
as the summer was almost gone, and the 
nights were becoming long and chilly. He 
was pinching off one mouthful of earth 
after another, and swallowing them as fast 
as he could squeeze them down. 

Doubtless he must have made some sort 
of noise under the ground there. Perhaps 
his squirmings and wrigglings and munch- 
ings sounded for inches through the earth 
around him. Well, anyhow, a hungry gray 
mole, who was making a tunnel through 
the celery-bed, heard the earthworm at 
work. She turned around in her tunnel 
and began to dig like mad in the direction 



THE EARTHWORM 43 

of the sound. She was very fond of earth- 
worms for dinner. She clawed away the 
dirt with her tiny shovel-like front paws, 
and kicked it out behind her furry little 
body as fast as she could dig. 

Now, as she was almost as big as a rat, 
she could not help making a stir with her 
shovelling and kicking. The pounding and 
thumping shook the ground around the 
busy earthworm. The instant he felt it. 
he stopped eating and wriggled up out of. 
that hole faster than he had ever wriggled 
before. Though he had never heard of a 
mole, something told him to get away from 
that spot as soon as he possibly could. 

He squirmed up to the top of his burrow, 
and waited a moment. The thumping and 
pounding seemed nearer than before, so he 
wriggled away at his very best gait, stretch- 
ing out his head and drawing up his tail, 
stretching out his head and drawing up his 
tail, stretching out his head and drawing 
up his tail, till he bumped into a celery 
stalk and curled down to rest. He kept 



44 WOXDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

still and did not move even the ring at the 
tip of his tail. This was lucky for him. 
because the hungry mole had plowed her 
way clear up to the top of the worm's 
empty burrow and was poking out her head 
to sniff around in the dark at that very 
minute. 

As soon as the earthworm felt able to 
work, he was obliged to dig another hole. 
This one he wanted to make deeper than 
any of the others, because winter was com- 
ing. In winter the ground freezes hard on 
top, just as water freezes into ice on the 
surf ace of a pond. Digging on a cool night 
in autumn was slow work, because the cold 
made the worm feel numb and lazy. Some- 
times his soft body felt too stiff to stretch 
another inch. But he kept on burrowing 
deeper and deeper till he had finished a 
safe and cosy little room far down in the 
ground where the soil around would not 
freeze, even in the coldest weather. 

When he was ready to begin his long 
winter sleep, he dragged some dead leaves 



THE EARTHWORM 45 

into his new burrow and plugged up the 
opening so that the frosty air could not 
creep inside. Then he crawled down to the 
very bottom and curled up in a soft little 
brown bunch to sleep till the spring sun- 
shine melted the frozen earth above him, 
and the warm sweet showers came trickling 
through the soil which he had helped to 
make. 



Ill 

MISCHIEVOUS MADAM MOS- 
QUITO 



Ill 

MISCHIEVOUS MADAM MOS- 
QUITO 

I. WHERE THE LITTLE HIGGLERS LIVED 

ONE spring morning, long before the 
sun rose, a little mother mosquito 
went flitting over the garden. She 
was looking for water in which to lay her 
eggs so that there would be some baby 
mosquitoes by and by. She hunted along 
the path, and around the bushes, and in 
the corners of the hedge; but she could 
not find even a broken bottle or empty tin 
can that might have held some drops from 
the last shower. 

Then she flew to the house at one end 
of the garden and crawled over the rain- 
water barrel in search of a crack in the 
cover. When she was sure that she could 



50 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

not jueeze ::: ; :;.r :: \:~ aer eggs. 

she went to the hydrant on the lawn to see 
if the hose had been lea kin g in a puddle 
underneath. But she could not hnd a 
single muddy spot. So she spread her 
filmy wings again and flitted away over the 
hedge and across the street and around a 
n to a pond in a vacant loi beyond. 

The pond had begun to dry up at one 
end. The ground near it was wet and 
spongy ~::h long yeDoif "l a sse s bending 
over little pools here and there. These 
pools were exactly what the mother mos- 
quito wanted, because there hoc nc fish in 
them to eat her babies. Perhaps she knew 
that the fish in the pond could not flap 
across the grassy sputa :: reach the puddles 
scattered over the marshy place. 

Anyw 7 Bern b me :: the patchy 

of quiet water and dropped her eggs upon 
it. She la: is many is three hundred or 
more. The wore all stuck together in a 
tiny raft which floated out on the 
of the pool. The sun came up and shone on 



MADAM MOSQUITO 51 

the ripples. A bird swung on a reed and 
fluttered down to drink. She dipped in her 
bill, splash! so near the wee brown raft 
that it was almost sucked inside. Away 
it went, dipping and tossing in the fairy 
wavelets, when suddenly, kerplunk, a big 
green frog hopped right on top of it. But 
the tiny raft was light as cork, and instead 
of sinking beneath him as he swam down 
to the bottom, it bobbed up to the top of 
the water again, and danced wildly hither 
and thither in the whirling billows caused 
by his plunge. 

All the sweet spring morning the raft 
floated in the sunshine, and early in the 
afternoon the baby mosquitoes hatched 
out. 

Now you would have been surprised! 
The babies that came squirming out of 
those eggs did not look a bit like their 
mother. They were nothing but soft dark 
little wigglers. The first tiny creature that 
wiggled out of the largest egg dived from 
under the raft and swam up to the surface 



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its: 



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iTH- T7KJ ~ lfl T 



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li 



t~ nit: our. 



"I:' 



i/j': 



t; ;e 



nrrm 

t: *j 
riTTir r 



... . )ur _ 
fiyrrrmnur 



L-. 



V.Z 



MADAM MOSQUITO 53 

She had to jerk her tiny body very fast 
and wiggle her tail and flap all her little 
swimming-hairs at once. She had six 
swimming-hairs on her tail and others on 
the rest of her body. She rowed with hairs 
as you swim by kicking your legs and 
throwing out your arms. 

As soon as she reached the top of the 
pool and poked her breathing-tube into the 
air, she felt lighter, because the new fresh 
air in her helped her to float. So she could 
hang there upside down without any trou- 
ble. When she was ready to go swimming 
around below again, she wiggled away 
downward as easily as a real fish. 

Xow one day a very dreadful thing almost 
happened. When she came hurrying up to 
breathe, after being a whole minute down 
at the bottom, she could not poke the end 
of her breathing -tube through the top of 
the water. Though she pushed with all her 
might, and flapped and twisted and jerked, 
she could not reach the air above. It 
seemed as if there was a layer of thin rub- 



"A H'o::fjfjifrL LITTLE LU\ 

ber over the surface of the pooL Finally 
she gave a last wild squirm, and managed 
to slip out from beneath that dangerous 
spot Her tail stretched up to the air in 
a twinkling. She hung there, breathing 
and breathing and breathing, deep down 
and all the way through her soft body. 
She had almost drowned that time. 

What caused all this trouble for her had 
been a drop of oil that had floated from 
over a dead frog at the edge of the pooL 
The oil made a tough him on the water, 
just where she tried to push through at 
first. If she had not wiggled away from 
under it and found a clear space, she would 
surely have drowned. Sometimes, when 
people wish to get rid of mosquitoes, they 
pour kerosene oil on the ponds and pud- 
dles near their houses. Then all the wig* 
glers drown because they cannot poke their 
tails up to the air to breathe. 

Mot long after this narrow escape, the 
young mosquito had an adventure that was 
really a joke, though very likely she did 



MADAM MOSQUITO 55 

not find it funny. She was wiggling hither 
and thither while she swallowed her dinner. 
A hundred or more of her brothers and 
sisters were twisting and dancing and 
squirming around her in the pool. Sud- 
denly, with a swish and a rush, a terrible 
monster of a tadpole dashed among them. 
His tail went flap, flap, flap, as he darted 
this way and that, with his round horny 
mouth opened hungrily. 

Now how were those frightened little 
wigglers to know that tadpoles are vege- 
tarians and eat bits of plants instead of 
gobbling, up lively mosquito babies by the 
dozen? They were doubtless quite as much 
scared as if he had been a great greedy 
fish instead of a harmless tadpole. They 
skipped in every direction to escape from 
the tossing and twirling of the ripples 
which surged about his thrashing tail. A 
tadpole, or pollywog, as it is called, may 
not seem very large to you. But you just 
try being a tiny wiggler once, and you will 
see. Perhaps you would feel like making 



56 WOXDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

up a fairy tale about a horrid big t'at ogre 
called Poilywog-the-Wiggler-Killer. 

In spite of such perils, the mosquito baby 
grew fat a.s she ate m:re aiod more. When 
she was too big for her old skin, she wig- 
gled out oi it said wore a new one a size 
larger. The thie .1 time .he changed her 
skin, she looked se different that she would 
hardly have recognized herself with her 
own eyes, if she had happened to have 
any. 

The head end of her body had swollen 
out big and round. She breathed through 
two little horns at the back of her neck, 
instead :: through me :: the points ef her 
tail. She felt so light that she stayed at 
the top e: the water most ■:: the time, with 

She did net care about eating new. She 
was happy en name oast t-e rleat there. 

pooh 

It was nnt a verv ^at'e nh : ?e i m 1 her. 
because there were dra^ren-rlies living near 



MADAM MOSQUITO 57 

that pond. More than one of them caught 
a glimpse of the two tiny horns sticking 
through the water, and came swooping 
down to catch the little fat morsel below. 
It was the queerest thing how that soft, 
dark, wee body, without eyes or ears, knew 
when the dragon-fly was coming. It may 
be that she could feel the shadow of the 
gauzy wings flitting above the water. At 
any rate, she always vanished like a flash 
before the hungry dragon-fly could snap 
her up. Away to the bottom she flapped, 
bending and twisting her slender body. 
She found now that swimming down was 
harder work than floating up, because her 
head end was so light and full of air. 

Dragon-flies were not her only enemies 
during the two or three days that she 
swung there in the water. Once a frog 
jumped at her, and another time, as she 
hung breathing at the surface, a bird spied 
her and darted at her just a moment too 
late. She had paddled downward like a 
flash. That was exciting enough, you may 



58 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

be sure. But the worst danger of all her 
babyhood was yet to happen. 

Somehow or other there chanced to be 
a few fish eggs in that pool. Maybe they 
had been laid there before the pond had 
dried away, leaving the marsh with its sep- 
arate pools here and there amid the long 
grasses. Well, anyhow, one morning some 
minnows hatched out of those eggs, and 
began at once to chase the little wigglers. 

It was, of course, sad for the wigglers, 
though possibly not so bad for the min- 
nows or for the people who might have 
been bitten by the mosquitoes if the wig- 
glers had escaped. But those energetic 
young minnows ate every wiggler in that 
pool except our wee creature who was the 
oldest of them all. She squirmed away 
while the minnows were busy catching the 
others. She wiggled close to the bank 
where there was not enough water for them 
to swim after her. There she stayed till 
night brought sleep to the young minnows 
who had been joyously darting to and fro 



MADAM MOSQUITO 59 

all day long in that pool, once the home 
of three hundred merry little wigglers. 

There at the edge of the water floated 
the mosquito baby in the darkness. She 
did not worry about the next morning when 
the hungry minnows would surely wake 
and swim around hunting for breakfast. 
Maybe the smallest one might flap along 
on his side through the shallow water to 
catch the little wiggler. But an animal 
like this young insect cannot think, and 
therefore she never worries. She only 
cares about the way she feels at the mo- 
ment. And all that night she felt quite 
comfortable except that her skin seemed to 
be getting tighter and tighter. 

II. WHAT MADAM MOSQUITO DID IN THE 
GARDEN 

In the morning — now perhaps you have 
been expecting this — her skin split, and 
out of the crack crawled a grown up mos- 
quito with a small head, a long slender 
body, and two gauzy wings. These wings 



58 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

be sure. But the worst danger of all her 
babyhood was yet to happen. 

Somehow or other there chanced to be 
a few fish eggs in that pool. Maybe they 
had been laid there before the pond had 
dried away, leaving the marsh with its sep- 
arate pools here and there amid the long 
grasses. Well, anyhow, one morning some 
minnows hatched out of those eggs, and 
began at once to chase the little wigglers. 

It was, of course, sad for the wigglers, 
though possibly not so bad for the min- 
nows or for the people who might have 
been bitten by the mosquitoes if the wig- 
glers had escaped. But those energetic 
young minnows ate every wiggler in that 
pool except our wee creature who was the 
oldest of them all. She squirmed away 
while the minnows were busy catching the 
others. She wiggled close to the bank 
where there was not enough water for them 
to swim after her. There she stayed till 
night brought sleep to the young minnows 
who had been joyously darting to and fro 



MADAM MOSQUITO 59 

all day long in that pool, once the home 
of three hundred merry little wigglers. 

There at the edge of the water floated 
the mosquito baby in the darkness. She 
did not worry about the next morning when 
the hungry minnows would surely wake 
and swim around hunting for breakfast. 
Maybe the smallest one might flap along 
on his side through the shallow water to 
catch the little wiggler. But an animal 
like this young insect cannot think, and 
therefore she never worries. She only 
cares about the way she feels at the mo- 
ment. And all that night she felt quite 
comfortable except that her skin seemed to 
be getting tighter and tighter. 

II. WHAT MADAM MOSQUITO DID IN THE 
GARDEN 

In the morning — now perhaps you have 
been expecting this — her skin split, and 
out of the crack crawled a grown up mos- 
quito with a small head, a long slender 
body, and two gauzy wings. These wings 



62 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

quito. Little Madam Mosquito must have 
felt this fact to be true, for she wisely flew 
away as soon as the terrible- jawed, four- 
winged, big-eyed dragon-flies had gone to 
sleep at nightfall. 

Off she flitted across the pond in the 
dusk. It seemed a long journey to her, 
for her wings were not very strong. The 
light evening breeze that blew over the 
water tossed her hither and thither as it 
carried her onward. She was glad enough 
to reach the shore and flutter to the ground, 
where she clung to a weed till she felt 
rested. 

Then she started out again and flew 
humming toward the garden. This hum- 
ming song was caused by the air beating 
against a certain part of her breathing 
tubes, as she hovered with wings outspread. 
Another mosquito heard her song, and 
came flying among the trees to find her. 
He could tell in what direction to go by 
the way the sound stirred his feathery feel- 
ers, or antenna?, as thev are called. When 



MADAM MOSQUITO 63 

he first heard her, the humming note ruf- 
fled the hairs on the outside of the left one. 
He turned his head till he could feel both 
his antennae ruffling just alike. By that 
he knew that she was straight in front of 
him. So he flew on till he found her. 
Then they flitted together through the gar- 
den in the sweet spring twilight to a blos- 
soming cherry tree. 

The young brother mosquito did not care 
much about eating, for he could not bite 
through anything. The sister mosquito was 
different. She had at her mouth a long 
sharp beak no thicker than a hair. She 
could push it through tender skin as if it 
were a needle, and suck up the juices inside. 
This evening she pricked into the center of 
the cherry blossoms and drank the nectar 
there. Then she flew to the vegetable beds 
and settled on one plant after another to 
taste the sap. 

By and by, as she flitted here and there, 
she happened to go near the house at the 
end of the garden. In a hammock under 



64 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

a maple beside the front piazza two chil- 
dren were swinging. The mosquito wanted 
to alight just then and rest her wings. So 
she settled down on one of their hands. It 
was natural for her, when she felt the soft 
skin under her feet, to press her mouth 
close, stab her beak in, and suck, as she had 
been sucking the juices of the plants and 
flowers. 

The fresh warm blood flowed up into her 
mouth. Ah, but this was the best thing she 
had ever tasted! She sucked and sucked 
and sucked till suddenly, slap! A small 
hand had almost smashed her into a flat 
red stain. The wind that it made as it 
struck toward her had startled her barely 
in time. She pulled out her beak and 
dodged in a hurry. 

But instead of flying far away from that 
dangerous place, she kept hovering near. 
Every chance she could get, she alighted 
on a hand or an arm or a forehead, and 
tried to get another delicious mouthful. 
She even bit through the little boy's stock- 




aF^ltT 



%£* 



IN A HAMMOCK UNDER A MAPLE TWO CHILDREN WERE SWINGING." 

[Page 64 



MADAM MOSQUITO 67 

ing, and pricked the little girl on her shoul- 
der under her dress. They kept slapping 
at her till their mother called them in to 
go to bed. 

That young mosquito, now that she had 
tasted blood, never ate anything else. She 
did not care for sap or nectar any more. 
If she had stayed in the marsh, or gone to 
live in a wood where there were no people, 
she would have eaten only the juice of 
plants, with now and then a bite perhaps 
of some dead animal. Millions of mos- 
quitoes never have a chance to suck warm 
blood as this little one did. 

Sad to say, the more blood she drank, 
the greedier she grew. Every evening she 
flitted out from her daylight shelter under 
a bush and hovered teasingly about the 
children in the hammock, or hummed 
around their parents on the piazza. She 
became so bold that she no longer dodged 
the very first instant she felt a hand slap- 
ping toward her. She kept waiting just a 
moment more, and then another moment, 



68 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

and another, before she pulled out her beak 
and flew quickly to one side. 

At last there came a sad evening when 
she waited one moment too long. Slap, 
crack, and Mischievous Madam Mosquito 
was dead! 



IV 

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE IN 
THE GARDEN 



IV 

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE IN 
THE GARDEN 

I. THE CATERPILLAR BABY AT HOME 

NEAR a gooseberry bush in one cor- 
ner of the garden a milkweed plant 
was growing. On one of the sil- 
very green leaves was a white dot of an 
egg which a big red butterfly had laid there 
four or five days earlier. Now something 
alive was beginning to move inside the tiny 
egg. Wee baby jaws were cutting out a 
hole in one end, about as big as the point 
of a pin. Up pushed the bit of shell like 
a lid, and out peered the queer crumpled 
little face of a baby caterpillar. 

He was hardly big enough to notice, 
and he certainly did not look as if he would 
ever grow to be a butterfly with four beau- 



72 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

tiful wings. He seemed to be nothing but 
a little striped worm on a weed. The first 
thing he did was to turn around, after he 
had squirmed out of the egg, and eat up 
the shell. This took some time, because his 
mouth was so very small. Though the egg 
itself was tiny, it was, of course, far larger 
than his speck of a mouth with its wee lips 
and jaws. 

The caterpillar did not eat the shell be- 
cause he liked the taste of it. He did not 
even know why he ate it, but I can tell 
you. If he left the empty shell on the 
leaf, some hungry bird, or fly, or spider 
might notice it. Then they would know 
that a baby caterpillar was somewhere 
near, and they would hunt among the 
leaves till they found him. So, naturally, 
it was safer for him to get rid of it as 
soon as he possibly could. He did it be- 
cause his father and mother had done it 
when they hatched out of their eggs. His 
grandfather and his grandmother had done 
the same; and his great-grandfather and 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE 73 

his great-grandmother, and so on back for 
years and years and years. That was one 
reason why they had lived to grow up and 
have children of their own, instead of being 
eaten up themselves while they were babies. 
This habit of eating the empty eggshell is 
so strong with caterpillars that they all do 
it the very first thing without understand- 
ing the reason why. Such an inherited 
habit is called an instinct. 

After our little striped caterpillar had 
swallowed the last bit of shell, he rested a 
moment, lying very still on the leaf. Per- 
haps his mouth was tired. Eating is rather 
hard work when the thing one is eating 
does not taste very good. But in a few 
moments he felt hungry for real food. 
Now do you think that he had to hunt 
around and go squirming this way and 
that to find it? No, indeed! The mother 
butterfly had laid the egg on the very plant 
which her baby would like best to eat. 
There he was lying right on top of his din- 
ner. All that he needed to do was to push 



74 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

out his lip against the leaf under him, suck 
back a bit of it into his mouth and cut it 
with his strong jaws. It was tender and 
juicy, and it tasted so delicious to him that 
he ate and ate and ate till he had eaten a 
hole through the tip of the leaf. 

By that time he was ready to rest again. 
Of course, if he had wanted to, he could 
have taken a little nap right there where 
he had been eating. But somehow he knew 
that it was safer for him to crawl to the 
under side of the leaf, and lie hidden in 
the shadow. Then a hungry bird, or a 
spider out hunting for his dinner, could 
not find him so easily as if he had gone 
to sleep in plain sight on top of the 
leaf. 

He did not rest very long, because he 
was in a hurry to eat again. In fact a 
caterpillar's chief business in life is to eat 
and grow. All day and part of the night 
he kept on doing the same thing. Now he 
crawled to the tip of the leaf and gnawed 
away till he was tired. Then he squirmed 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE 75 

back to the under side and rested till he 
was hungry again. 

When he moved, he did not drag his 
body on by stretching out his head and 
drawing up his tail, as an earthworm does. 
Though he looked like a worm, he really 
was not a worm. He was a baby insect, 
and he had six true legs, as all insects have. 
These six time legs were under his body 
next to his head. They had horny claws 
and were jointed so that he could use them 
in walking. 

Besides these legs, he had ten others far- 
ther back toward the tail end of his body. 
These ten prop -legs, as they are called, 
were short and stubby. They helped to 
prop his body up above the leaf. They 
paddled along behind when his six front 
legs started out walking. 

The ten prop-legs helped him in another 
way too. On the tip of each one were tiny 
hooks that hooked around the little hairs on 
the stem of the milkweed, and kept him 
from falling off. At first he was so careful 



76 WOXDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

in stepping from one spot to another that 
he spun a silken thread ahead of him as 
he walked. On his lower lip was a homy 
tube. Out of the tube came a thread like 
that of a spider's web. Wherever he 
moved, he kept swinging his head from 
side to side and fastening the thread over 
the leaf like a zigzag ladder. That made a 
safe path for him, because he could hook 
his hind legs fast at every step. 

If it had not been for his spinning 
thread, he might have had a bad accident 
one morning. He was hurrying over the 
edge of the leaf on the way from his nap 
to his dinner. Just as he was half across, 
with the last part of his body swinging 
loose in the air as he scrambled from one 
side to the other, there came a thump and 
a bounce. A bird had alighted suddenly 
on the stem of the milkweed, and made it 
teeter up and down. The little caterpillar 
hung on as tightly as he could, digging the 
claws of his six forefeet into the edge of 
the leaf, but the plant gave such a jerk 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE 77 

upward when the bird flew away that he 
lost his hold. Down he fell; down, down, 
down, — for as much as an inch. 

All at once he stopped falling and hung 
there in the air. The thread of silk from 
the tube on his lower lip kept him from 
dropping to the ground. One end of it 
was still fastened to the zigzag ladder 
which he had been spinning as he crawled 
over the leaf. So there he swung at the 
other end of it, with his tiny, striped body 
squirming and twisting. But he soon 
found that he was safe and in a moment 
he climbed up the thread and went to eat- 
ing again. 

II. LOST IN THE WILDERNESS 

After he had been eating for about two 
days, he began to feel as if his skin was get- 
ting too tight for him. Of course, the 
more he ate, the fatter he grew, but his skin 
remained the same size it was at first. 
Naturally he felt crowded inside. Now 



~II~~"i L II L'"I 



::i 









THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE 79 

It happened one afternoon that he was 
hurrying to crawl under a leaf before a 
thunder-storm could catch him and wet 
him. The drops began to patter down just 
as he was wriggling along the stem of the 
milkweed as fast as he could wriggle. He 
was in such haste that he did not take time 
to hook fast to the hairs on the plant at 
every step. So, when three big drops of 
rain came trickling down behind him and 
rushed against him with a swish and a 
splash, he lost his balance and slid off to 
the ground. 

If he had been spinning out a thread as 
he moved, he would have been able to climb 
up it to the plant again. But now he was 
lost in the grass below, for he did not know 
how to find his way back. Though he had 
a curved row of tiny eyes on each side of 
his head, he could not see well at all. He 
knew when it was light, and he knew when 
it was dark, but probably he could not see 
things any better than you could if you had 
a cloth over your eyes. 



80 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

The poor little caterpillar lay still for a 
moment after he had dropped with a bump. 
Then he uncurled and began to crawl away 
as fast as he could scramble. When he 
moved, first the horn, or feeler, on one side 
twitched forward, then the horn on the 
other side. If a feeler touched a pebble 
or brushed against a leaf, he knew that he 
must turn out and wriggle away in a dif- 
ferent direction. It was just as if you 
were running in the dark, with your hands 
stretched out in front to feel your way. 

On scrambled the lost baby caterpillar 
through the forest of grass. His slender 
horns twitched backward and forward. The 
skin on his back wrinkled up in tiny folds 
over his jointed body and then un wrinkled, 
as his front legs trotted along too fast for 
the stubby hind legs to follow without drag- 
ging. Being lost was very confusing. He 
hurried in one direction blindly till the tip 
of a horn brushed against a root, then he 
turned and crawled swiftly in another di- 
rection till he felt the steep hard wall of a 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE 81 

pebble in his path. After wriggling around 
it, he set out straight ahead again in a 
greater hurry than before. He did not 
know what was the matter, or where he 
was. He only knew that he was lost in a 
strange dreadful place, far away from the 
soft hairy stem and tender leaves of his 
milkweed home. 

Before he had scurried forward three 
inches, he almost bumped into a dead stick. 
He dodged to one side in such wild haste 
that he could not stop himself in time when 
he felt his front pair of feet clutching at 
the empty air. He was right on the edge 
of a hole which had been dug by a squirrel. 
Down he tumbled, rolling over and over 
till he reached the bottom. 

The fall did not hurt him, because he had 
no bones to break. But what do you sup- 
pose? A big gray spider lived in that hole. 
She was hanging in her web in one corner. 
When she felt the threads jerk and tear 
as the caterpillar fell through, she ran out 
to discover what was the matter. But he 



82 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

lay so still, curled up in a round little ball, 
that she could not see him, for he was as 
much as four inches away from her. If 
he had moved, perhaps she would have no- 
ticed him, because spiders, and many in- 
sects and birds, too, can see moving things 
more easily than things that are not mov- 
ing. It was lucky for the caterpillar that 
he did not begin to wriggle out straight till 
after the spider had turned and crept back 
to the middle of her web again. 

However he never learned what a ter- 
rible danger he had escaped. As he could 
not see her or hear her, he did not even 
know she was near. It just happened that 
she was not looking when he uncurled and 
started scrambling up the side of the hole. 
After reaching the top, he kept on in the 
direction his head was pointed. He hur- 
ried along till his horns touched a plant. 
Instead of squirming away from it, some- 
how he wanted to crawl up the stem. And 
so he did. The moment he felt the soft 
hairy covering under his feet, he flapped 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE 83 

out his lip and took a big bite of a tender 
leaf. He knew that he had found a milk- 
weed home at last. 

III. THE CATERPILLAR BABY GOES TO SLEEP 
IN HIS CRADLE 

He must have been the happiest little 
caterpillar in all the garden that day. The 
first thing he did was to rest a while, for 
he was tired from his wanderings. Then 
he crept out on a juicy leaf and ate and 
ate and ate. He had never been so hungry 
before in all his life. 

Day after day he ate and rested. Some- 
times he ate at night, too, although he 
moved more slowly and slept longer when 
the air was cool on his skin. Four times 
he changed his skin, and appeared in a 
bright new suit. When he had grown to 
be almost two inches long, a wonderful 
thing happened to him. He went to sleep 
a striped green and yellow caterpillar, and 
woke up a red butterfly, the most beauti- 
ful little creature in the garden. 



84 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

This is the way it happened. After 
coming out in his last new skin, he ate 
greedily for two or three days. Then he 




did not seem to care for more food. He 
crawled over the leaves without stopping 
to eat. He roamed up and down the stem 
till finally he felt so queer and restless that 
he crept to the ground and went hurrying 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE 85 

off through the grass. He walked on and 
on till he reached a stone. Up he crawled, 
and over the top, and down the other side. 
He did not stop, however, because he had 
not yet found what he was seeking. He 
was seeking a safe, sheltered spot where he 
could prepare for his long nap. 

Beyond the stone he came to a tree. Up 
he climbed, wriggling across the rough 
places on the bark, squirming through the 
cracks and hollows. When he felt a branch 
stretching above him, he walked out along 
its under side and began to spin a carpet of 
his silken thread. This carpet was like the 
little mats he always spun whenever he was 
getting ready to crawl out of an old skin. 
The only difference was that he made one 
spot in it very thick. After he had finished 
it, he crept out upon it and hooked his last 
pair of legs into the thick spot. Then he 
let go with all the rest of his legs and 
swung head downward, almost as a boy 
hangs by his toes to a trapeze. 

All day and all night he swung there on 



86 WOXDERFVL UTILE LIVES 

the under side of the limb. Instead :: 
hanging down straight, he curved his head 
up toward his tail. That made his skin 
stretch so tight over his rounded back that 
soon it split and began to shrivel away. 
When it had shrunken to a dry little bundle 
clinging around his last pair of legs, he 
jerked out the tail end of his body by twist- 
ing and whirling. Then he caught hold 
of the thick part of the carpet with the 
hook on his tail. The old skin with its two 
horns and ten prop-legs dropped off, and 
left him hanging there, all wrapped up in 
a soft green chrysalis. 

Through the pale covering of the dnys- 
alis the new butterfly could be seen with 
its wings folded around its jointed be 
It was not ready yet to awaken and fly 
away. It must sleep till its wings, and 
eyes, and legs, and tongue, and feelers 
could grow strong enough to be of use- 
So it hung there under the branch for more 
than a week. 

The early sunbeams stole in level ra pa 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE 87 

across the garden and shone on the green 
and gold cradle of the sleeping butterfly. 
Once Grasshopper Green went whirring by 
on his way to find a fresh tender leaf. 
Sometimes a spider scampered past on its 
eight long legs, or a woodpecker paused in 
her hunt for insects under the bark to nip 
at the chrysalis. She could not peck a hole 
through, because the covering of the pretty 
case had hardened and thickened to pro- 
tect the delicate young creature inside. 
Once in a while a puff of wind set the 
cradle swinging gently; but there was no 
motion within, except a feeble wriggle now 
and then. 

IT. BUTTERFLY RED WINGS WAKES UP 

At last came a beautiful morning after 
a night of warm drizzling rain. The damp- 
ness softened the shell of the chrysalis. 
When the sun burst through the gray 
clouds, it set all the wet leaves twinkling. 
Gleaming drops of water trickled around 
the limb and dripped softly upon the green 



88 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

cradle. Was it. moving? Did something 
stir within? Yes, surely it had quivered, 
and begun to swing lightly to and fro, 
though there was no breeze to bend even 
the grasses. 

Click! The shell cracked, and opened 
slowly like a fairy door. The butterfly 
had awakened. He bent this way and 
that, struggling to escape from the chrys- 
alis case. He drew his head from beneath 
the covering. He pulled out his six legs 
and, setting them upon the outside of the 
case, he crawled up to the limb above. 
There he hung, damp and weak, his wings 
drooping downward, his large eyes shining 
like jewels in the sunlight. He was a real 
butterfly now, in a garden world of leaves, 
and light, and flowers. He would never 
again be a greedy little caterpillar who 
cared for nothing else except eating all the 
time. 

While he clung to the limb, his four 
wings grew slowly larger and stronger, 
as blood flowed into them from his body. 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE 89 

He waved them gently to and fro. The 
air hardened the tiny shining scales that 
covered his wings like satin. This partic- 
ular butterfly had wings of deep orange 
red, veined with black, and dotted on the 
edge with white. Such butterflies are com- 
mon everywhere in America, and are called 
by the name of " monarch," perhaps be- 
cause they are such splendid, big beau- 
tiful creatures. 

Though this young butterfly had great, 
gleaming eyes, he could not see his own 
body, and so very likely he did not care 
what color he happened to be. Just at 
first he was more interested in his tongue 
than in his wings. It was a queer tongue, 
made of two long hollow pieces. He had 
some trouble in fitting these halves face 
to face to form a tube. He kept trying 
again and again, laying them together and 
then drawing them apart till he succeeded 
in hooking them right. Then he coiled the 
tongue, like a watch spring, up to his 
mouth. 



V) 



WOXDERFl'L LITTLE LIVES 



His mouth now was not in the least like 
:he mouth he had while he was a ca:er- 
piiiar. Instead of a tiny flapping Lip and 

ny jaw.s for nibbling, he had or. 
slender tongue between two .short : 
horns. Never again in all his Life could 
he take a bite of tender, juicy green leaf. 
lie could not eat anything except what 
might he sucked up through the tube of 
this long tongue. 

At last he was ready to fly. He lifted 
his wings slowly upward till they were 
folded close together over his back. Then 
he unclasped his feet from the bark of the 
limb, and spread his beautiful wings. 
A v.- ay he sailed through the air. On in 
the sunlight he fluttered like a living 
flower. He was searching for a real flower 
from which he might suck up the \ 
j u j ce o f h on ey . II e h a d e a t e n n \ 1 h i r. g 
since the day he had fallen asleep in his 
iir c -j:n and gold cradle. 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE 91 
V. LIFE AMID THE FLOWERS 

Over the garden he flew, past the very 
milkweed where he had lived when he was 
a baby caterpillar. He did not notice the 
pale green and white blossom that swayed 
on the tip of the slender stem. Though 
his eyes were large and bright, he could 
not see things very distinctly. Only the 
gayly colored flowers attracted his atten- 
tion. 

Beyond the milkweed some poppies 
were growing in the grass around the cur- 
rant bushes. The butterfly caught a 
glimpse of spots of glowing yellow, and 
fluttered toward them. He hovered near, 
now drifting with the breeze, now soaring 
with wings outspread, till he was close 
enough to smell the flowers. He could 
smell with the two long thread-like an- 
tennae, or feelers, above his eyes. 

Slowly he fluttered down upon one of 
the yellow poppies, and uncoiled his long 
tongue. Here and there, into the golden 



92 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

heart of the flower, he thrust it again and 
again till he had found the honey. Then 
he folded his wings above his back and 
stayed motionless on the petals while he 
sucked up the sweet juice. When he had 
taken all the honey in that flower, he flitted 
on to another and another. Oh! it was 
delightful to be a butterfly in a fragrant 
garden. 

Long before evening he crept under a 
leaf on a bush, and slept till the morning 
light grew bright and warm, then he was 
off again to hunt for fresh flowers or rest 
lazily on the leaves in the sunshine. One 
day while he clung to the tip of a twig, 
half opening and closing his wings drow- 
sily, he felt a sudden rough dash of wind 
blow his antennas backward. He had 
barely time to fly quickly to one side, just 
as a straw hat came swooping down over 
the spot where he had been resting. The 
rim of the hat snapped against the tip of 
one wing and tore a nick in its velvety 
edge. 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE 93 

The boy who had tried to catch him ran 
laughing along the road, while the injured 
butterfly fluttered away over a field. If 
the hat had broken his beautiful wing, he 
would never again have been able to fly, 
but would have crawled hither and thither, 
dragging it drooping and crushed by his 
side, till he died of hunger. For how could 
he have found enough honey to keep him 
alive, if he had lost the wings that carried 
him from flower to flower? 

The butterfly did not know what had 
hurt him. He soon forgot all about the 
past danger, as he drifted onward to a 
hillside sweet with . blossoming clover. 
There were other butterflies there, some 
white, some yellow, some blue, some pur- 
ple. Bees who lived in the garden were 
gathering honey to take back to their hives. 
They worked hard all day long, making 
honey and wax, caring for the baby bees 
at home and doing a dozen other things. 
You shall hear of them when you read 
the story about bees. But the idle butter- 



94 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

flies did no work from morning to night 
except seek nectar among the flowers. 
Nectar is a kind of watery honey. 

It must have been pleasant to be a but- 
terfly in summer, especially to be a big 
red monarch with strong wings spread to 
the breeze. When this one of ours went 
soaring high among the tree tops, he was 
not afraid of being caught by a bird. His 
parents had never been afraid either; and 
somehow, without thinking about it, he 
knew that birds did not like the taste of 
any of his family. So, while many of the 
other kinds of butterflies flitted quickly 
here and there, or dodged and hid low 
amid the bushes, he sailed on in plain sight. 
Sometimes he sported alone or played with 
another butterfly, circling around his com- 
panion as they fluttered up, up, up in the 
sunshine. 

VI. AWAY TO THE SOUTH AND BACK AGAIN ! 

If only it were summer all the year, 
what a lovely time the butterflies would 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE 95 

have! But at last the autumn came, as it 
always does; and the days grew shorter 
and cooler. It was only during the sun- 
niest hours now that Red Wings fluttered 
over the garden like a lovely flower. He 
did not feel like stirring as soon as he 
awoke in the morning, because the cold 
air made him dull and lazy. He did not 
even want to lift his wings, but dozed com- 
fortably till the sun shone warm enough 
to open fresh buds on the marigold bushes. 
Then he came flitting out to hover over 
the blossoms. 

One day he slept so late that the bees 
had time to take all the honey from every 
flower in the garden before he began to 
hunt for any. There were not many flow- 
ers in bloom now, for the clover was gone, 
and an early frost had nipped the nastur- 
tiums. The butterfly was so hungry that 
he flew across the hedge to seek wild asters 
and goldenrod in the fields along the road. 

On he sailed, pausing now and then to 
alight on a plant or to sip a drink from a 



96 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

quiet pool. Once as he was resting, with 
his wings folded above his back, he smelled 
another monarch butterfly somewhere near. 
He waved his antennae to and fro so as 
to smell better. Yes, surely he had not 
been mistaken. Though he could not see 
them yet, he knew that many big red but- 
terflies like himself were gathering among 
the bushes not far away. They were get- 
ting ready to journey southward for the 
winter, as some birds do. The monarchs, 
being the strongest fliers among butter- 
flies, are the only ones that can travel very 
far. 

So he flew joyously onward till he found 
them. There were thousands and thou- 
sands, some resting on the ground, others 
clinging to the leaves and twigs and limbs. 
In a few days they began to fly toward 
the south. For weeks they sailed through 
the air about as fast as a man can walk. 
Of course our butterfly did not know how 
many there were in the great swarm about 
him. He could see, perhaps, moving dim 



THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ONE 97 

spots of bright color here and there, above 
and beneath and behind and ahead of him. 
He could smell many more. When they 
came near enough, he could touch some 
with his antennse. At night he clasped his 
front pair of feet to some twig so close 
to his companions that he had no space 
to spread his wings. In the daytime they 
all soared steadily southward till they 
reached a land where the sun shone warm 
and flowers bloomed all winter long. 

There the swarm separated. Some flew 
this way, and some flew that way. Our 
butterfly stayed in the South till spring. 
When the lilacs began to bloom in the 
beautiful garden where he had lived as a 
baby caterpillar, he came flying toward the 
North again. 

His wings were a little ragged by this 
time, and quite faded, for he was getting 
old and had flown many miles with the 
wind ruffling the delicate scales that clothed 
him. Of course every time he folded his 
wings or beat them together in flying, he 



98 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

wore them out the least little bit. But, 
joyous as ever, here he was again, floating 
over the fields where he used to seek nectar 
from the flowers. 

Three or four young milkweed plants 
had sprung up from seeds where the old 
milkweed had been growing the summer 
before. On the tip leaf of each one was 
a white dot of an egg laid by a mother 
monarch butterfly. On other plants and 
weeds were eggs of caterpillars of other 
kinds of butterflies. Here and there a new 
young butterfly, with wings of pale yellow, 
or white, or blue, came crawling from its 
chrysalis cradle and clung to a leaf while 
it waited to grow strong enough to fly. In 
the garden the lilacs and the lilies and the 
apple-blossoms opened their golden hearts 
to the sunlight and waited for the bees and 
butterflies to come visiting for honey. 



V 
THE UNTIDY FLY 



V 

THE UNTIDY FLY 

I. THE PLACE WHERE HE WAS HATCHED 

NOW it happened that some distance 
down the street from the house 
with the garden was another house 
where an untidy family lived. This other 
house had a garden also; but the flower- 
beds were crowded with straggling weeds. 
In the back yard so many ashes had been 
scattered carelessly over the ground that 
not a single earthworm burrowed there to 
help make the soil rich and light. The 
cover to the cistern was so loose that dozens 
of mother mosquitoes had laid their eggs 
in the water. Worst of all, a heap of dirty 
straw beside the barn door lay steaming in 
the August sunshine. 

Above this rubbish from the stalls hun- 



102 WOXDERFTL LITTLE LIYI 

dreds of flies were buzzing lazily. Xow 
and then one of them alighted on the heap, 
and crept down into a crack. In a mo- 
ment she crawled out again and went to 
buzzing as before. But she had left some- 
thing tucked away beneath a clod or a 
straw. What do you think it was? It 
was a bunch of tiny white eggs that would 
hatch into baby flies the next day. 

Perhaps you would hare been surprised 
if you had seen what kind of a baby came 
wriggling out of one of the eggs the next 
morning. He looked like a fat little white 
worm with a speck of a mouth at his head 
end. Of course the first thing he wanted 
was something to eat Luckily for him, 
his mother had laid her eggs right in the 
very food that her babies would find best 
for them. If they hatched out on sand or 
clean fresh-smelling earth they would hare 
starred to death, or else dried up and died, 
as they squirmed this way and that in seek- 
ing a place soft and moist and slimy with 
rotting thru 



THE UNTIDY FLY 103 

This manure heap was exactly what they 
needed. The mother had been a wise little 
fly to choose so well with her dot of a 
brain. She had laid more than a hundred 
eggs in a bunch, and as she could not take 
care of so many babies all at once, she put 
them where they could take care of them- 
selves. 

For a whole day the baby fly, or maggot, 
as the name is, squirmed amid his brothers 
and sisters in a corner of the heap, and 
ate the soft wet parts near his mouth. He 
did not eat the hard bits of hay and straw. 
He felt warm and damp and happy. His 
round little body grew too large for his 
skin. So when it cracked open, he wriggled 
out in a new white skin. Then he went 
to eating for another day. Once again 
he changed his skin, and squirmed around 
livelier than ever, as he sucked away at the 
rotten mass. 

After three or four days more, the mag- 
got seemed to lose his appetite. He began 
to feel so queer and drowsy that he 



104 IRFUL LITTLE LIVES 

dragged himself off under a straw and 
went to sleep. While he slept, he turned 
hrown and grew hard outside; He was 
shut up in his own skin as if he were lying 
in a tiny barrel The greedy little mag- 
got, who could do nothing except wriggle 
and eat, was changing into a big-eyed 
gauzy- winged dy. 

When the young fly began to wake up, 
doubtless he felt queerer eren than when 
he fell asleep. How could he know what 
had happened? He could not look at him- 
self, for he was all doubled up in the dark 
case formed by his old skin. His six new 
legs were bent under him, and two limp 
'"::gs rresse;: :-I:-se :: Lis sides. Pe:::.irs 
he tried to squirm around as he used to 
do when he was a maggot. Instead of 
a pleasant, simple, little wriggle from 
mouth to tail of a soft tiny body, his two 
^s "/"tIt::. Lis six legs t^iTched ;.:::: 
tickled him, and his new head waggled on 
his sr-eek :: .1 sienier neck. H: had ::eTer 
had ■?. real ::~ck before. X;-' he faar.d a 



THE UNTIDY FLY 105 

neck very convenient, for what do you 
think he had to do? He had to hammer 
a hole in the hard case with his head. 

So up and down he hammered away 
without exactly knowing why till, crack, 
the shell split, and out crawled the young 
fly! Dear me! but it was thrilling to have 
legs. He ran a few steps this way, and 
then turned and ran a few steps that way. 
He crept along a straw, his damp limp 
wings hanging by his sides. The light 
made him feel dizzy; for this was the first 
time he had ever had real eyes. Now that 
he had two big ones and three little ones 
on the top of his head, he must have found 
the world much more interesting than be- 
fore, when he was a blind little maggot. 
Perhaps the world itself seemed to have 
changed after he went to sleep, though in 
fact it was only he himself who was dif- 
ferent. 

Since he found mere legs and eyes so 
exciting, fancy how he felt when at last he 
discovered that he could fly ! While he was 



106 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

running nervously to and fro, his wings 
had time to dry and expand to their full 
size. He was a full grown fly now, al- 
though so new. Winged insects, when 
they first come out from the chrysalis, are 
as big as they will ever be. 

This young fly, being still weak from 
his long, cramped sleep without food, wob- 
bled a little as he walked along a slippery 
straw. Somehow he slid off, though he 
certainly should have known better than 
that, for his feet were even stronger for 
clinging to smooth surfaces than the grass- 
hopper's. Well, off he staggered in the 
moist rotting spots where slimy maggots 
were squirming happily. Queer! but now 
that he was changed and grown up, he did 
not enjoy manure much at all. He hated 
to draggle his slender legs and soil the 
edge of his wings, for one reason, perhaps, 
because it was so much trouble to clean 
them. 

He crawled upon another straw as fast 
as he could, and rubbed his front feet to- 



THE UNTIDY FLY 107 

gether to brush off the dirt. Then he lifted 
his last pair of legs and scraped them 
% under and over his wings. And then — 
wonder of wonders! Even he himself did 
not understand quite how he did it. Away 
he was sailing in the sunshine, his gauzy 
wings beating the air so fast that they did 
not seem to move at all. 

II. HIS ADVENTURES IN A KITCHEN 

Now wouldn't you have thought that 
flying was fun enough for a while? But, 
no, of course the first thing that fly wanted 
was something to eat. He seemed to feel 
that the chief use of wings was to carry 
him to find food. So away he buzzed over 
the ash-strewn backyard and tangled flower- 
beds, till he reached the porch of the house 
where the untidy family lived. 

Ah, but something smelled enticing! It 
was a beef -steak being fried on the stove 
in the kitchen. The hungry fly flew 
straight toward the smell, nearer and 
nearer, till bump! he struck the screen 



108 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

door. Xaturally, being so new to the 
world, he did not understand that a screen 
door is intended to keep flies outside the 
house. All he knew was that the delicious 
smell came from the other side of this pro- 
voking wall full of holes not nearly big 
enough to let him squeeze through. 

He crawled up and up till he struck the 
top. Then he scrambled buzzing down to 
the ledge and began to crawl up again. 
The browner the steak sizzled, the faster he 
buzzed and the oftener he bumped his head 
and the angrier he became. Finally — oh, 
joy! — he happened to alight upon the 
edge of a torn place hi the screen. Im- 
mediately he crept through, as easily as 
anything. On he flitted toward the frying- 
pan over the fire. 

Xow even the most foolish fly that ever 
lived is not so silly as to take a bite of 
piping hot steak, no matter how delicious 
the smell. This young fly hovered as near 
as he dared while the steak was cooking. 
Sometimes he floated buzzing hi the air. 



THE UNTIDY FLY 109 

Sometimes he crawled along the edge of 
the greasy sink and then flew across to the 
%table without waiting to clean his feet. On 
a corner of the table was the peeling of 
a decayed banana. The fly crept over it 
and then walked up the side of a sticky 
sugar-bowl and down into the sugar. 
Wherever he stepped, specks of the rotten 
banana and other stale food, that had clung 
to the hairs on his feet, were scattered on 
the sugar. 

This was unpleasant enough, but some- 
thing worse followed. When the mother 
in that untidy family gave the baby a 
spoonful of sugar, she could not see the 
tiny specks of rotten banana on it. But 
they made the baby feel sick and fretful 
all the next day. The mischievous fly, 
however, knew nothing of this. Of course 
he had not meant to cause anybody to have 
colic. The trouble with him was that he 
was too lazy to clean his feet properly 
after walking through sticky refuse. It 
was not so much his fault as the fault of 



110 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

the family who let their kitchen go dirty 
and their screens remain unmended. Some- 
times flies carry the germs of typhoid 
fever from one place to another. 

As for the fly's supper that evening he 
ate so much sugar that he lost his appetite 
for the steak. He had no jaws with which 
to bite his food. His upper lip grew in 
the form of a tube, with two tiny flat files 
at the end. When he wanted to eat, he 
unfolded his long tongue, scraped off a 
bit of sugar with his files, and sucked it 
up to his mouth. 

That night he slept on the frame of a 
picture in the dining-room. When he 
smelled breakfast cooking in the morning, 
he flew toward it, leaving a black speck 
where he had been resting. But then there 
were so many fly specks already on the 
frames and windows that one more or less 
did not make much difference. 

On his way to the kitchen he passed near 
the dining-table. Five or six other flies 
were buzzing around the syrup jug. He 



THE UNTIDY FLY 111 

circled nearer and nearer till he settled 
down on the sticky rim of the jug. He 
unfolded his tongue and took a sip. That 
was even better than sugar, because it was 
easier to suck. After he had eaten all he 
wanted, he lifted his wings to fly. But 
they just flapped up and down without 
raising him in the air. All six of his feet 
were stuck tight in the molasses. 

That was a terrible plight. First he 
stood on five legs, and tried to pull the 
other free. Then he leaned on four and 
struggled to kick with the last two. He 
pulled and kicked and jerked and twisted. 
Once he dragged one foot loose, but he for- 
got to hold it high enough. In a moment 
it was stuck deeper than ever. He sank 
down on his side to rest an instant, and one 
wing was glued fast, then the other. The 
harder he struggled, the stickier he became 
and the less he could move. 

At last he was almost dead of fright and 
weariness, and lay still. When the baby's 
mother started to pour some syrup on a 



112 WOXDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

pancake, she saw the fly and fished him 
out on the tip of her fork. She shook him 
off into the air without watching to see 
where he fell. He went tumbhng clumsily 
over and over, and dropped splash right 
into the baby's cup of milk. 

This new adventure was not so bad as 
you might at first imagine. Of course he 
was now in danger of drowning. But 
very likely it is pleasanter to drown kick- 
ing in clean cool milk than to smother to 
death motionless in thick molasses. 

The little fly. however, did not intend to 
drown if he could help it. As soon as he 
felt the milk wash over his head, he began 
to struggle again. And this time, happily, 
the more he struggled, the easier it was to 
jerk and twist and flap. You see, the milk 
was washing the molasses from his tired 
legs and draggled wings. 

Finally he was all untangled from the 
stickiness and was free to swim as best he 
could. But alas! by that time he was so 
very weary that he stopped kicking and 



THE UNTIDY FLY 113 

floated quietly. Really he was beginning 
to drown, for he could not breathe, even 
if his head was held above the milk. In- 
sects breathe through tiny holes on each 
side of their bodies. This fly would surely 
have died as he floated, if the baby had 
not poked at him with a small fat fin- 
ger. 

The instant the fly felt something touch 
him, he gave a flap and a kick, and scram- 
bled up slowly over the finger. The baby 
laughed when he felt the crawling feet 
tickle his skin. In a minute he tossed the 
fly off into the air just as he had seen his 
mother do when she fished the insect from 
the molasses. Down dropped the fly to the 
floor, for he could not use his wings while 
they were wet. As soon as he stopped 
feeling dizzy from the whirl and bump, he 
crawled slowly under a chair and rested 
till he was strong enough to clean his legs 
and wings and rub his eyes dry. Then 
away he flitted toward the sunshiny win- 
dow, buzzing as gaily as if he had never 



Ill WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

known the dangers of milk and the perils 
of molasses. 

HL HIS VISIT TO THE CAMDEN 

His troubles for the day were not yet 
over. The baby's mother lay down after 
luncheon to take a nap. But the dies both- 
ered her so much that she could not get 
:: sleep. First one crawled over her fore- 
head, and then another tickled her nose. 
A third alighted on her cheek, and a fourth 
crept across her hand. When the woman 
grew tired and cross from slapping at 
them, she jumped up and snatched two 
bowels 2nd began to drive the dies out-of- 
doors. 

Around and around the room she went, 
waving the towels. 5: me of the flies hid 
End the pictures, others crept into cracks 
in the piastei itfaers scurried on before the 
swirling breeze caused by the towels. Our 
young fly was sunning himself quietly on 
the window-ledge when smack ! A corner of 
a towel snapped down close beside him and 



THE UNTIDY FLY 115 

almost killed him. Away he tumbled in a 
terrible hurry, banging his wings against 
the pane, bumping his head, and bending 
his feelers. He really was a stupid little 
creature, even if he did have six legs and 
five eyes ^pid two beautiful gauzy wings. 

At last he happened to get started 
toward the open door and was driven along 
by the whirling towels. Out he sailed into 
the sunshine and joined a swarm of other 
flies who were soaring contentedly above 
the porch steps. They floated in the air, 
their wings whirring softly and swiftly. 
Now one darted toward another, then flew 
apart, or circled this way and that. It was 
fun to be a cheerful young house-fly on 
a pleasant summer afternoon, especially if 
an untidy family lived near enough to be 
convenient for meals. 

If our young fly had been wise enough 
to stay where he was happy and well fed, 
he might have lived till the autumn frosts 
numbed his busy wings. Perhaps, if he 
had been lucky, he might have slipped into 



116 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

the house again and hidden in a cosy crack 
all winter till the warm days called hint out 
in the spring. But, no, he was meant for 
another fate. That afternoon a breeze 
sprang up and the fly carelessly drifted 
on before it till he reached the beautiful 
garden. 

At first he seemed to enjoy being there. 
He alighted on a twig of the hedge and 
rested for a few mhiutes, his wings glisten- 
ing hi the sunlight. Then he flitted to a 
flower and hovered above it, for it smelled 
like honey. Just as he settled upon a petal 
and began to unfold his tongue, a woolly 
black spider darted out from beneath a leaf 
and jumped for him. He slipped away 
barely in time. 

A moment later he was floating hither 
and thither above the clean gravel path. 
Of course he was hungry again and hunt- 
ing for something to eat. Now, would 
you believe it? In all that garden there 
was hardly a thing that he liked. There 
was no rubbish thrown out from the house 



THE UNTIDY FLY 



117 



to lie rotting in corners. There were no 
spots of grease or stains from spilled food 
on the kitchen porch. After a long search, 
the fly found an apple that had fallen from 




a tree and had begun to decay. He ate 
a little of that, and then took a few sucks 
at a dead beetle hidden under a tuft of 
grass near an ant-hill. 



118 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

When the people in the house began to 
cook supper, he caught a whiff of some- 
thing most delicious. As quickly as he 
could beat his wings, he followed the smell 
to the kitchen, and bumped against the 
screen door. Up and down and around he 
buzzed and tumbled and fluttered and 
crawled in a blundering hurry to get in- 
side. But not even the smallest rip could 
he find in the screen. 

Every time somebody opened the door, 
he tried to fly in but was brushed back by 
the careful cook. She did not want any 
untidy flies trailing their dirty feet over 
her food. Finally — sad to say! — that 
hungry young fly managed to hide near 
the knob, and just as the door was swing- 
ing swiftly shut, he tried to dart in. But 
alas, alas! he was one instant too late. He 
was caught in the crack, and he never went 
buzzing again through the garden. 



VI 

THE SPIDER WHO WOULD 
A -HUNTING GO 



VI 

THE SPIDER WHO WOULD 
A -HUNTING GO 

I. A NURSERY FULL OF BABIES 

THE mother spider carried her nurs- 
ery of babies up to the top of her 
hole and held it where the morning 
sunshine fell warm upon it. From the out- 
side it looked like a silky yellow ball as 
large as a hazel nut. But inside — dear 
me ! — you should have seen the crowd of 
tiny spiders tangled together. Each one 
was no bigger than the head of a pin, even 
with all his eight legs spread out. A spider 
is not exactly an insect, for true insects, 
such as the grasshopper, mosquito, butter- 
fly and others, have only six legs. 

The last baby spider, who came kicking 
out of his speck of an egg, had hardly 



122 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

room to wriggle. Such a squirming and 
tickling and sprawling and crawling under 
him and over him and around him! He 
had more than a hundred brothers and sis- 
ters. When they all began to creep out 
of their own skins, that nursery was cer- 
tainly a lively place. Some hung on to 
the walls, and some hung on to each other, 
while they pushed off their old suits with 
their hind legs. 

Before the youngest one had finished 
pulling his feet free of his own ragged 
clothes, he was nearly buried in a heap of 
empty skins. He kicked his way out and 
caught hold of one of his bigger brothers 
with his claws. That kept him steadier 
while the others jostled and scrambled and 
tumbled. Their new coats were larger 
and hairier than their old ones. Their jaws 
were stronger. Close to his mouth, each 
baby had a pair of extra legs, or palps, 
which he could use like hands. 

Suddenly the whole nursery began to 
move, bouncing the family around worse 



THE SPIDER 123 

than ever. Really, though of course they 
knew nothing about the dangers outside, a 
bird had hopped along to the top of the 
hole. The mother spider had felt him 
coming in time, and scuttled down to the 
deepest end of her house with her silken 
cocoon full of babies held tight in her legs. 
The youngest one clutched his brother 
closer and hung on till the shaking and 
jerking stopped. Perhaps he would have 
shut his eyes to get rid of the dizzy feeling 
if only he had had eyelids. But after all 
eyelids were not necessary in such a dark 
little round room. It had not a single 
window or door. The spider could sleep 
just as well with his eight eyes wide open. 
Now very likely that is a convenient way 
to have your eyes, if you wish not to miss 
anything that may be going on. Soon — 
what do you suppose ? — the biggest baby 
bit a hole in the wall of the nursery. A 
dim gray spot of light shone in. As soon 
as the youngest one saw it, he started to 
crawl toward it, without waiting to wonder 



124 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

why he wanted to go. He pushed up be- 
side his brother and looked out. He could 
not see anything except the hairs on the 
mother's body. The hairs on her legs were 
so sensitive that they seemed to hear what 
the little spiders were doing. She turned 
the cocoon over and jumbled them all 
safely back in the dark again. 

The next morning when she carried her 
nurseryful up to the sunshine, the warmth 
made the babies feel lively. One after an- 
other, they came scrambling through the 
hole in the cocoon, and crept upon her 
back. There were so many of them that 
they covered her all over. The later comers 
climbed up on the others. Then those 
underneath squirmed out and tried to crawl 
on top of the crowd. By the time the 
youngest one managed to squeeze his way 
into the tangle of brown legs and soft dots 
of yellow bodies, he could not find a bit of 
room except on the tip .of the mother's 
head. 

When the cocoon was empty, the old 



THE SPIDER 125 

spider let it drop. She had all she could 
do to take care of her hundred or so chil- 
dren. They rode on her back wherever she 
went for two or three weeks. Naturally 
it was rather a nuisance for her to take 
such a large family along with her when 
she wanted to go hunting. If she had 
been the kind of spider that lives in a web, 
it would have been easy to sit quiet and 
wait for a fly or some other insect to come 
near enough to be caught. But she hap- 
pened to be a ground spider who lived in 
a hole and went out to hunt for food when 
she was hungry. 

II. HOW THEIR MOTHER TOOK THEM OUT 
HUNTING 

The youngest baby had a narrow escape 
the first time they all left home together. 
The mother crept to the top of her hole 
with the little ones riding on her back. 
Just below the opening she stopped to 
listen with the hairs on her legs. The 
ground above her was still. She could not 



126 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

feel the faintest tap of a bird's claws, or 
the scurry of a lizard, or the thud of a 
clumsy hopping toad. Though she en- 
joyed hunting small creatures, she did not 
wish to be hunted herself. So of course 
she was very careful to keep her eyes open 
and her legs busy and her sensitive hairs 
alert when she journeyed away from her 
safe deep hole. 

As soon as she was satisfied that no en- 
emy lurked near, she crawled a few steps 
higher, and then halted again. The shadow 
of a falling leaf flitted across her and 
frightened her so that she scuttled back out 
of the light. After that she waited for 
several minutes before creeping cautiously 
up once more. The babies clung together 
without jostling impatiently. Though they 
did not understand why their mother was 
so slow in getting started, they felt that 
she was wiser than they were. 

In a minute she began to move onward 
again. At the opening of her burrow she 
raised the front half of her body and 



THE SPIDER 127 

peered out watchfully. She could not twist 
her head this way and that, as an insect 
can, for she had no neck. Her body 
seemed to be in two round pieces joined 
by a slender waist. On the front half were 
her legs and her head. In the rear half 
were her tubes for spinning webs. Spiders, 
you know, are the champion spinners in 
the animal world. 

Though she had eight eyes, she could 
see clearly only a few inches. However 
she really did not need keener sight. All 
the spiders that had lived before her had 
managed to get along pretty well with that 
kind of eyes. Her duty was simply to 
make the best of what senses she had, and 
to use them to take care of herself and her 
children as well as she possibly could. 

After she had looked all around, she 
ran swiftly over the ground to a clump of 
grass. That was fun for the babies. The 
youngest one on the top of the heap 
clutched his claws more tightly upon those 
below him and tried to brace himself steady. 



128 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

A breeze ruffled his hairs. The fresh air 
soaked through his breathing -holes into his 
tiny body. That made him feel so happy 
that he forgot to hold fast. He loosened 
his claws for an instant, and took a joyous 
little jump to one side. Alas! just as he 
came down lightly on the back of another 
brother, the mother slipped beneath a low- 
hanging blade of grass. In brushing over 
her, it scraped off the youngest spider, 
and sent him sprawling down upon the 
earth. 

He lay there as if dead, with his legs 
curled under him. Spiders often play dead 
like that when something unexpected hap- 
pens. In a moment he stirred and began 
to crawl away — that speck of a baby 
spider, lost in a wilderness of grasses. 

What would become of him in a world 
where dangers might be hiding behind any 
leaf or pebble? If a hungry bird should 
spy him, or a lizard should come darting 
past, he would be gobbled down in a twin- 
kling. A strong- jawed ant might leap on 



THE SPIDER 129 

him and sting him to death, or some 
strange, grown-up spider might catch him 
and eat him. The lost baby would cer- 
tainly have died somehow or other if his 
mother had not come rushing back. 

She had not missed him. Oh, no! She 
had not noticed his fall, and as she could 
not very well count her family she would 
not have known it, even if a dozen or so 
had been scattered along her path. She 
had another reason for hurrying that way 
again. She was chasing a hundred-legged 
worm. Now although the worm could run 
fast, the spider could jump. And anyway, 
I should not wonder if eight long legs are 
better for many purposes than a hundred 
short ones. 

However that may be, it is sure that the 
mother spider jumped, and caught the 
worm just as he was wriggling swiftly past 
the lost baby. When she grasped the 
worm with her palps, and began to eat 
him, the baby scrambled up on her back 
in a jiffy. It was a lucky adventure for 



130 WOXDERFUL LITTLE LIVZ : 

him, but not so pleasant for the worm, of 
course. 

For two or three weeks the young spiders 
rode with their mother wherever she went. 




The bigger they grew, the more they jos- 
tled and crowded when they climbed on her 
back. One day they crept all over her legs 
and crawled out above her eyes till she 
could hardly see. She raised her long fore- 



THE SPIDER 131 



legs, and brushed off about ten of the both- 
ersome little fellows. They dropped to 
the ground and ran to the opening of the 
burrow. When the mother went inside, 
they hurried after her and scrambled upon 
her back again before she was ready to set 
out on another hunting trip. 

After the children had changed their 
skins the second time, they began to be 
quarrelsome, perhaps because they were 
hungry and wanted something to eat. 
When the mother spider saw a red ant 
hurrying past the burrow, she jumped for 
it. The jar shook the youngest one from 
the edge of the crowd on her back. He 
picked himself up and crept near to watch 
what she was doing. She was drawing out 
cobweb threads from her spinning-tubes, 
and winding them around and around the 
ant. The ant kicked with its six legs and 
clashed its horny jaws, as it struggled to 
get free. This frightened the young spider 
so that he turned and scampered away as 
fast as he could go. But in a moment he 



132 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

stole cautiously back again. Some of his 
brothers and sisters trotted after him. 

They waited till the ant was dead. As 
soon as the mother had crushed it tender 
in her jaws, she held it while her babies ate 
it. To be sure, one ant was not large enough 
to feed a hundred little spiders, so the old 
spider had to work hard to catch enough 
to feed her family. Once she captured a 
big fat beetle and then they all had a feast 
together. 

III. HOW THEY ALL RAN AWAY FROM HOME 

The youngest baby tried to stay close by 
the mother spider much of the time. That 
was how it happened that he was almost 
always near enough to get a bite when she 
caught anything. Naturally he grew faster 
than the others, because he was able to eat 
oftener. Very soon he was as big as any 
of his brothers, though he had hatched last 
of all. 

By-and-by the mother seemed to get 
tired of feeding and carrying her children. 



THE SPIDER 133 

One morning she was so cross that she 
made every one scramble down from her 
back. When the youngest tried to climb 
up again, she reached for him with her 
forelegs and threw him several inches. She 
was careful not to throw him hard enough 
to hurt. But still, such treatment must 
have wounded his feelings a little. It made 
him wish to run away from home the first 
chance he could find. 

He did not need to wait long, for even 
if the mother did have eight eyes she could 
not watch a hundred babies every minute. 
That very afternoon he crept from the bur- 
row and ran to a stem of grass. First he 
touched the root with the spinning-tubes 
at the end of his body. Out of the tubes 
flowed a thread of cobweb silk. As he 
crawled up the grass, the thread length- 
ened behind him. When he had climbed a 
few inches, one of his brothers followed 
him, clinging to the first thread, and draw- 
ing another after him. Then came a dozen 
others, each one adding a new thread to 



1M WOXDERFUL UTILE UFES 

the line that reached from the ground up 
along the stem. 

When the leader reached the top of the 
grass blade, he walked around on it. still 
drawing out his silken thread. This was 
lucky for him. because the wind was sway- 
ing the grasses so hard that it shook hi m 
off. Instead of dropping straight down. 
.It swung at the end of his thread. He 
lowered himself slowly by spinning it out 
longer inch by inch. 

He chanced to land near the home burrow 
and hurried inside just as his mother was 
spinning a door over the opening. She 
could feel that the night would be cold, 
and so she wanted to keep the children shut 
up safe within the warm hole. Doubtless 
she had seen the dozen runaways go scam- 
pering off toward the grass. The youngest 
squeezed under the edge of the new door 
and ran to join the others at the lower end. 
He was the only one of the wanderers who 
found his way back. 

After that, whenever the mother spider 



THE SPIDER 135 

opened the door on a sunny day, some of 
the children would run off and never come 
home again. Each one wanted to make 
a home of his own, and live by himself. 

One sunshiny autumn morning the 
youngest spider started out alone without 
saying good-by to his mother or the half 
dozen little fellows who still followed her 
around. He trotted off past the clump of 
grasses and under a gooseberry bush. Just 
as he was crawling over a twig, he hap- 
pened to look up. There close beside him 
he saw one of his sisters digging a burrow. 
She had that moment come out of her tiny 
hole, with a speck of earth in her jaws. 
Her brother ran nearer to see what she 
was doing. Instantly she dropped the 
speck of earth, and sprang forward to 
chase him away. She did not wish to be 
bothered by any of the family now that 
she had her own home. 

The visitor scampered on in a hurry. 
He did not see any use in trying to stay 
where he was not wanted, especially as his 



1:. : WONDERFUL UTILE LIVES 

sister was bigger than he was. When he 
reached the next bush, he went exploring 
hither and thither till he found a spot of 
soft moist earth. Here he dug a burrow 
of his own. He dug it by biting out specks 
of soil and earrvincr them to one side in 
his jaws. He knew how to do it without 
being told. Although he was so young, 
he mold do everything that his mother 
could. 

Perhaps you would not find it very 
thrilling to five ;-.". :::e in a hole under a 
gooseberry bush for weeks and weeks. But 
this spider had some exciting adventure 
nearly every day. He spent his life in 
hunting or being hunted. One mor nin g a 
robin pecked the hole open. If she had 
not had her bill full of earth when the 
spider scuttled out she would surely have 
snapped him up. He had but a moment 
: : s curry under a clod. 

Another morning, when he ~ ■;. ; wander- 
ing around an ant-hill, hunting for tiny 
red ants he was almost taught i Baa 



THE SPIDER 137 



More than once he was chased all the way 
home to his hole by some big hungry old 
spider. Many a time he scuttled into 
hiding, every leg shaking with fright. 

Now, would you believe it? Spiders are 
very good friends to the green growing 
things in a garden. They eat the tiny 
insects that suck the juices of plants. They 
catch little caterpillars that gnaw the ten- 
der leaves. They devour small beetles and 
bugs that nibble the roots. That is how 
they help the garden to grow. This is why 
you should be kind to spiders, for they 
rarely bite people. They do not crawl over 
the food in the pantry as flies do. They 
do not care to sting you as mosquitoes do. 
If you will look at them closely, you will 
see that some of them are beautiful, with 
glistening colors. 

IV. HOW THEY FLEW WITHOUT WINGS 

As the days became shorter and the 
nights cooler, our little spider stayed under- 
ground in his burrow more and more of 



13S tVOXDERFUL LITTLE LTVI 

:::e rinie. One a:der:;:>:::. ::; 0:::oe: de :en 
die sunshine warm above him and crept out 
in search of adventures. Perhaps he i 
tired of living in the same hole week aftei 
week. And anyway he was getting :.: 
big fa 1 i fide easily. 

He sr: ::::d ::. fan -.::■.- -\i ir ilh o ul a look 
behind.. If he had looked behind he ~ :>uld 
have seen something to worry him. A 
slender wasp was peering about under the 
dead leaves that had fallen from the bushes. 
She iras humtiiq i fat spiders. By the time 
she reached the empty littk borrow and 
peered wdinn, ib locky nmea wat halfway 
up the stalk of a hod yl nek Hut grew fac- 
ade the hedge. 

Here be7~eer_ ; lea: ana :he 

stalk, he found a cobweb barring his path, 
and sept cautiously out around it One 
of the wehi was triangabr. One was 
round as a wheel, and in the middle ;: il 
hung a big lack and 7 Vd:~ spida 
her :::: resting » the silken lines. If he 
had sfce] n one of them, she i 



THE SPIDER 139 

have run toward him to see if anything 
good to eat was entangled in the sticky 
lines. 

A few inches above this spider's home, 
one of her children was spinning a web 
about the size of a silver dollar. He had 
fastened three threads in the shape of a 
triangle between a leaf and the stalk. He 
was running busily round and round, draw- 
ing out new threads and weaving them in 
the form of an uneven spiral. Some time 
you ought to watch a spider spinning a 
web. 

Our little fellow who was climbing up 
the hollyhock was not much interested in 
webs, as he liked better to live in a hole. 
He did not stop to look, but trotted to the 
tip of a leaf that touched the hedge. Over 
he jumped and hurried on till he was at 
the tiptop of the highest twig and could 
climb no farther. Then what do you imag- 
ine he did? He stiffened his legs and 
raised the end of his body where the spin- 
ning-tubes were. From the tubes came a 



140 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

ray of threads that floated out in the 
breeze. Longer and longer it blew up 
above him till it pulled harder than he 
could hold. All at once he loosened his 
eight claws and sprang into the air. Away 
he went sailing across the field with the 
lines of silk streaming in the wind. He 
was flying upside-down, with his feet cling- 
ing to a tangle of delicate threads. 

That was almost as much fun as having 
wings. The sun shone, and the breeze 
blew, and the air glistened with floating 
threads of young spiders out a-flying that 
autumn afternoon. There were all sorts 
of spiders that had come from all sorts of 
homes. Some lived in holes, some lived 
in webs, some lived in cracks of wood, some 
lived under stones, and some lived on trees 
or bushes, or in the grass. When our little 
wanderer went sailing over a fence, he was 
almost near enough to see dozens of others 
running and jumping in frolic at each 
other while they were getting ready to spin 
out their threads for flying. 




THERE WERE PERILS IN THE AIR AS WELL AS ON THE GROUND." 

[Page 143 



THE SPIDER 143 

Away and away, higher, higher, higher, 
above the fence, above the bushes, above 
the tops of the tallest trees, he sailed. But 
there were perils in the air as well as on 
the ground for adventurous little spiders. 
Once a bird darted toward him with such 
a rush of wind from her flapping wings 
that he was blown just beyond reach as 
she snapped at him. 

Perhaps that narrow escape made him 
feel that he had been flying long enough, 
so he began to draw in the floating threads. 
With his jaws and palps and fore-feet he 
wound the silk into a flossy ball at his 
mouth. As the lines grew shorter, the 
wind could not carry him along so lightly 
as before. Slowly he dropped lower and 
lower till he swung against the tip of an 
oak leaf, kicked his legs free from the tan- 
gled threads, and scampered down the 
trunk. 

He found himself in a grove of trees 
far from the beautiful garden. Of course 
he did not know how far he had travelled, 



144 WONBEBF WE UTTLE UVE 

or where l-. ~ls Al ~l^: i«t :•::..:. s^i 
was a small space of rotig:. zz'hj :-.: ■: " ... 
brown leaves lying around iL He dipped 
under a leaf and crawled Iwimralh an acom 
to rest till mornir.^ 

The night was «» cold fb^: Emri Sob- 
ered thick and white on tibe groin. 1 Ewcb 
in his snug corner the _.~.t ; t lit i't.t 
chilled. He lay curled up in a tiny ball 
till the sun had melted the :':::: :. '.- 
wet, glistening leaves. Then he crept oat 
and caught a beetle for breakfar 

After that he was strong encc z ; ~ : r 
another hole. Tins was to be bis bone 
where he would sleep all winter long. So 
he dug it deeper than Ms other 
and made a door of bits of twigs 
together with silk. After he had gone 
side, he fastened the door down over the 
opening with threads. Now he was 
to curl down safe and warm in his 
and sleep till April sunshine thawed the 
ground above and called him forth to go 
once more a-hunting. 



VII 

THIS IS THE HOUSE THE AXT 
BUILT 



VII 

THIS IS THE HOUSE THE ANT 
BUILT 

I. HOW THE HOUSE WAS BEGlTN 

IT was an exciting day for the little 
brown ants that lived in the meadow. 
Out of every doorway in the hill they 
had come swarming. Hither and thither 
scurried the small, wingless ones, now dart- 
ing this way, now rushing that way, as they 
prodded, and pushed, and pinched the 
large, winged ones to make them hurry 
faster. Those without wings wanted the 
others to fly away and start homes for new 
families of ants. 

The first winged ant that went running 
down from the round hillock scampered 
up a lily leaf as fast as she could move 
her six nimble legs. No wonder she was 



148 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

in haste. Every time she stopped for an 
instant, the little one behind her poked 
her with a hard tiny head or nipped her 
with a pair of horny jaws. Up she scur- 
ried to the tip of the leaf, and opened 
her gauzy wings that flashed in the light. 
She kept raising and lowering them un- 
easily, for she wished to fly. and yet she 
was almost afraid, for she had never flown 
before. 

All her life till this summer day she 
had lived in the pleasant dark rooms of 
the nest under the hill, except when she 
was brought out with her winged brothers 
and sisters to play on a pebble or swing 
on a grass stem in the sunshine. On those 
other days the wingless ants had taken 
care of her and fed her and coaxed her 
back into the nest again. But now thev 
were trying to drive her away. And 
strange to say, she was eager to go! She 
longed to fly up, up, up into the warm 
bright air above the meadow. 

On the edge of the leaf she hesitated, 



HOUSE THE ANT BUILT 



149 



her wings quivering. Then came the nip, 
nip, from behind. She swayed to and fro, 
her feet unclasped their hold, and she 
soared slowly above the lily. She was 




-OJ 



flying! From other leaves and grasses 
near by flitted her brothers and sisters. 
Soon the air was alive with winged ants, 
— rising, falling, dancing in and out of 
the swarm. They drifted onward with 
the wind as they fluttered and whirled. 



150 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

When the sun went down and the chill 
of twilight began to numb the restless 
tiny bodies, one by one they dropped to 
the ground. The one who had first 
climbed the lily leaf tried to creep under 
a twig to hide for the night., but her trail- 
ing gauzy wings caught on a splinter and 
jerked her backward. When she started 
to squeeze beneath a stone, they held her 
back again. Somehow she knew that she 
would never need them for flying any 
more. So she broke them off. She 
flapped them back and forth and pulled at 
them with her feet. She rubbed against 
pebbles and twisted suddenly this way 
and that till finally the frail wings 
snapped off and lay tattered and torn on 
the ground. Then she slipped beneath 
the stone and rested till morning. 

Though she was tired from her flight, 
she did not sleep quietly. She lay on her 
side with her two big eyes and three little 
ones wide open, because, you see, she had 
no lids to close over them. Once in a 



1 HOUSE THE ANT BUILT 151 

while she lifted first one foot, then the 
other. Perhaps if an ant can dream at 
all, she was dreaming of the busy days 
to come. Xow and then her body twitched 
nervously, and her slender feelers quiv- 
ered in her sleep. 

In the early morning she began to 
awaken. She stretched out her head; next 
she lifted a leg and shook it. In a minute 
she scrambled up on all six legs and walked 
toward the light shining in under the edge 
of the stone. There she stopped to yawn 
and clean herself before beginning work. 
She licked her face and head w T ith her 
tongue, as a cat does. She drew her legs 
between her jaws to wash them. She 
combed her feelers with her forefeet. 
Then she started out to find a good place 
to build her house. 

Now, though she did not know it, she 
had chanced to drop to earth right in the 
middle of the beautiful garden. The 
stone under which she had been sleeping 
lay near the gravel path. She ran this 



152 WON 



-:---.- mi 1221 
:,— r-s 12-1 :i 

Tl2 -:-i f: 



y.zrixt -: i>2 -r m :::...;- 122- 1:2227 
L-le --s ::: ":.:-, 22 2I2 -:,:- :: Li: 
::: 22127221,=: 21221 2—27 :;: ^2:1222^: : 

felting md for whatever else she 

122 12 2: " 

A 2 : t : 522 2 1 2 2 2 r :: 22-2 222: 212 22 i :: : : 
_^ir 1: 112 21 212 12222 -12 .22.::. 7 :i 2: 
2 122 :: "2^2:2:^5 B2: 212 s:_ 21222 
12.2 ' isz been 222:22 :"t: 2222 ~25 ::•: 
L:«:>e :•: n: '1^1 I: ~~:2_2 ii~2 \y-.i 22 

I! ill 122 27:2-2 22' 1222:2 2 2222V 1122222", 

A: ..- ; ~ 2i: : 12212 212:1.7 212 =11 : 212 
wanted, dose to the edge of the path. It 

—is 12:212: ::•: 1212 1:: ::•: ; ::: 12:1222: 
::•: misi 1:2 ::•: 2i~ I: ~ 25 1:: ::: 
sandy, or too clayey, or too marshy. 

WJthoat pansn. : 2251 and wish for 
s:r2ir: : 27 2: 12". 2 122 1:: -:?:-- i 2: ~ 
Sir til 22:1 i 12:2:1:2: :: riri 2-2 lui 



, HOUSE THE ANT BUILT 153 

V 

it down a little way off from the begin- 
ning of her house. Soon the soil was piled 
in a hillock of crumbly brown specks all 
around the hole. She carried each new 
mouthful up to the top and let it roll 
down the outside. So she kept on biting 
up bits of soil, carrying them up to the 
entrance and letting them roll away. 

II. TAKING CARE OF THE BABIES 

When she had dug down far enough, 
she hollowed out a tiny room and laid an 
egg not nearly so big as the head of a 
pin. Then she was busier than ever. 
What with laying new eggs, carrying 
them up into the sunshine when the day 
was cold, or down into the shady nurser- 
ies when the air was too hot outside, what 
with cleaning the house and digging new 
rooms, she really did not have time to 
eat. 

In two or three weeks, a baby ant was 
hatched from the first egg that she had 
laid. It looked almost like the egg itself, 



154: WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

except that the baby's body had a small 
groove around it, just below its head. It 
was like a soft white worm. The mother 
fed it with food from her own mouth. 

Now she could hardly find a moment, 
even to sleep. When she was not feeding 
the baby, or brushing and washing it with 
her tongue, she was carrying the eggs 
from one room to another, or licking them 
to keep them from getting dry and hard. 
All day long and most of the night her 
six busy legs trotted up and down, to and 
fro, in and out, till they fairly ached from 
weariness. Whenever she had a spare 
minute she dug her house a bit larger and 
laid another egg. It takes a great deal 
of work to be the mother of a whole ant- 
hill. 

By the time there were six little ones 
hatched, the eldest was ready to fall 
asleep and change to a grown-up ant. It 
must have been a relief to the mother 
when the baby stopped eating and began 
to spin a w^eb over her own body. After 



HOUSE THE ANT BUILT 155 

she was covered all around in a safe warm 
shell of silk, she curled down quietly and 
slept for almost four weeks. While she 
slept, the tired little mother kept on work- 
ing harder than ever. She would be glad 
enough to have a grown-up daughter to 
aid her by and by. 

At last one day the mother noticed that 
the cocoon moved and almost turned over. 
Something was stirring inside. She came 
running swiftly to help the young ant 
crawl out. She unfolded the six legs 
which had been doubled up in the narrow 
cradle. She smoothed the threadlike feel- 
ers, placed some food in the hungry new 
mouth, and licked the soft skin of the 
slender body. Then she must have told 
this eldest child of hers to hurry and take 
care of the other babies. 

Yes, there were dozens of babies in the 
nest by this time. Some were fast asleep 
in their cocoons; others were getting 
ready to spin the webs around themselves; 
others were still soft squirming little 



:■:•: ~ r : :~: 17,771 177771 77~I7 

wam.5. Ti - '" : ~iz. z :. ... " -. _ lz lz ::.:■--. 

run \ "....". .7 : ..;.. :..-: -i^-::_.- :: :;: 

help, 

Sfcg was ' l ug iMiMity at; fioL Once Ac 



:: .:-:z_ 
the child was no 
such a very sb : :~ 
sister's tiny jams 
young ant was n 
v. 7 ;_... "..7; S:»; 
licfcz. r :.r: 77-- 
take hZii 2-i-z i 
"^ iiggie and. sbjh 
to feed me^ asks 
" . . 7 : ... • . : 7 : : 
../-. i:.i ::7i ./-. 
to drink tbt "77- 
:~. r^risted awi 
too tight- 

However i 7 • 

helped from their 
::i:-t :•:' ..ir belief 



HOUSE THE ANT BUILT 157 

mother began to leave most of the work 
to her daughters now, while she spent all 
her time and strength in laying fresh 
eggs. 

III. FEEDING THE FAMILY 

One morning the eldest sister set forth 
to hunt for food. This was not her first 
trip out-of-doors, for she had often car- 
ried eggs up to the warm air above. Now 
she was going alone on a journey, and 
perhaps she would never come back. The 
beautiful garden was to her a world of 
dangers. A bird might snap at her; a 
spider might spring upon her; or some- 
body's heavy foot might crush her flat. 

She was not afraid, however, doubtless 
because she did not stop to think of what 
might happen. Away scurried the little 
brown ant down the little brown hill. She 
ran across the path, her head bent toward 
the ground, her feelers touching every 
pebble and twig within reach. Now she 
scrambled over a bit of gravel; now she 



158 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

squeezed beneath a stalk of grass; now 
she trotted around the edge of a mon- 
strous chasm made by some human per- 
son's heel. Such a chasm may not seem 
monstrous to you; but then you must 
remember that you are much bigger than 
an ant. 

On the other side of the path she hur- 
ried forward zigzagging this way and that 
through a wilderness of grasses that 
stretched around on every side for inches 
and inches. Indeed it was a forest as 
long as the path itself and as much as two 
feet wide. At its farther border the ant 
smelled something good to eat. She stood 
still for a moment, and twitched her feel- 
ers so that she could tell from which di- 
rection floated that delicious fragrance. 

All, now she knew! HiuTy-skurry, she 
scampered toward the stem of a lily 
plant. There in a small hollow at the 
root lay a tiny fly that had been drowned 
by a sudden shower while he lay asleep 
in the lily-cup above. His body had been 



HOUSE THE ANT BUILT 159 

washed down the stalk to the hollow. The 
ant sprang upon it and lifted it in her 
jaws. 

Dear me! but it was heavy, and so 
much bigger than she was herself that she 
could hardly balance it even when she 
propped it with her forefeet. She 
dragged it toward home very slowly be- 
cause it was so big and she was so little. 
She had not noticed before how rough the 
path was. Now the dead fly's wing 
caught on a grass blade and almost 
jerked her back in a somersault. Now 
it had to be pulled and hauled over a peb- 
ble. Now it needed to be lugged toil- 
somely all the way along one side of a 
fallen twig, around the end and up the 
other side. 

The ant was tired out when she reached 
home at last. And then, after all that 
trouble, to find that the fly was too large 
to go into the nest! Perhaps if she had 
been a little girl, she would just have sat 
down and cried. But being an ant she 



160 WOXDERFUL UTILE LIVES 

trotted into the hole and called her sisters 
to help. She could tell them things by 
rubbing her feelers against theirs. Two 
of them followed her outside and gnawed 
off the fly's wings so that he could be 
dragged down into the dining-room. 

The next day she started out to hunt 
for honey. At first she tried to get it 
from flowers. It seemed as if she was 
always in a hurry; you could guess that 
from the zigzag, nervous way in which 
she ran hither and thither. It really was 
too bad that she wasted her time over the 
flowers. The first one she visited was a 
yellow snap-dragon. When she reached 
the tip of the stem, she found that the 
pretty petals covered the golden heart 
where the honey was hidden, and she was 
not strong enough to push in. 

Then she trotted off to a verbena. 
When she began to climb up the stalk, 
she kept running against the sharp points 
of tiny hairs. Even" time one tickled her 
eyes or brushed her feelers, she seized it 



HOUSE THE AXT BUILT 161 

in Tier jaws, because she thought it was 
something trying to fight her. This made 
her so cross that she turned and scrambled 
to the ground. 

Xext she began to creep up a milk- 
weed, but her claws cut through the green 
stem and sticky white juice flowed out. 
She could hardly pull her claws free and 
struggle away. The dirt on the ground 
stuck to every one of her claws so that 
she had to stop and clean them. The last 
blossom that she visited was one with 
petals curving outward all around the 
heart. When she tried to climb over the 
slippery edge, she slid and tumbled off. 
After picking herself up, and shaking 
her legs to see if any were broken, she 
gave up seeking honey from flowers. It 
was better for the flowers to be visited 
by bees instead of ants, because a bee 
sucks honey from only one kind of plant 
at a time. If the flowers grew so that 
ants could run from one to another, the 
yellow pollen in their hearts would get 



162 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

:.! ::.:.:: 7.: _:t.. ..:_.; :;_..: -■-;_.; V 
-.'::.- $tzfi.s Y: : .: "~_1 '.t.irz ::„::- 
this when yoa study botany. 

Mow where do jaa dank Bk Gtti 
-ei: :: ±:i irnfv :.: :.ikt h:zjr 
she dUbed a tree to explore. Si 
long* way up* and Sk but was n 
: . . : ■ : '. . . i :.: r: . ~; :. :_ i :^: = 
:nir:5 I: - ..> i:.r:. ~:ts. :; :lizi: 
:vji:> ii \:z is z::vji:i,iz.5 :. ber 
iscsamblin^ down into cracks like 
TaHeySfe or to mn aigaag along the 
.: ;. :::L::_::^ rreciT::^ 1/1: ... 



I:-. .1 :'r™ ~:i 
: 7 _:^ s:.i::.:/_r.;; r 

b-er zi' :-.:± :I: 



HOUSE THE AXT BUILT 163 

honey from flowers. As soon as another 
drop appeared, she drank that too. Then 
she stroked the bug's back gently with her 
feelers till a third drop oozed forth. That 
was how she milked the little green cow. 

There were other ant cows, or aphids, 
as their real name is, on the branch. The 
brown ant went from one to another till 
she was so full of honey-dew that she 
looked as round as a bubble. Then she 
trudged away down the trunk and back 
through the garden to the nest in the 
little brown hill. One of her sisters ran 
to meet her. The honey-bearer rose on 
her four hind legs with her front legs 
outstretched and her head lifted. The 
other stood up in the same position and 
pressed her jaws against her sister's till 
a droplet of honey flowed from one mouth 
to the other. Two or three others came 
to drink a drop or two. Then the honey- 
bearer pushed past them and crept into 
the house to feed the babies and the 
mother ant in the same way. 



l':4 DEEFUL 17711 LIVES 



r TTAFrr iulys at 
S Ike Isle ■■■■■■■■■■ ■ sfip]: 

.1 ~-i~s rk ::r e-eryboly -; i; 

kept hatching into soft white iran- 
c?y I*-e h-c:e> i:e li .77- t£1 

tier were ready to spin their own cradles 
and fall asleep in tine wonderful sleep 
that rhangrd them to niiaMf footed work- 
as The busy young workers nursed Ike 
f zi:±e: :;.:k jure ::' ±e 
eggs, dog the house larger, milked Ike 
.inted for small lender caterpillars 
and dead flies* gathered seeds to stove for 

to fight tike ants from another nest. 

One day a Ktfle sister d B KJU ie i e d a trail 

of molasses that the glutei's hoy had 

:r_ i:s -.1" :: :>_<f :n:k ixr :: 

at the end of Ike garden. She 

to tell ike others. Soon a 

hag line of ants were coming and goings 

one behind the otter. They followed at 

3 tie sane patn, wmumg between tne 



HOUSE THE ANT BUILT 165 

grass stems, around the pebbles, across the 
walk and up the porch steps. The ants 
who were marching to get more molasses 
waved their feelers when they passed those 
returning with their burden of sweets. 
Though ever on the alert to spring upon 
a stranger and tear and bite and wrestle, 
they were kind and helpful and affection- 
ate to all those belonging in their own 
nest. 

They worked steadily all the morning 
and were still trudging back and forth in 
the afternoon. Then something disturbed 
them. Suddenly those who were crossing 
the path stopped, waved their feelers, 
broke from the line, ran uneasily this way 
and that, and finally scurried off in all 
directions. From around the lilac bush 
came marching an army of big red ants. 
They did not move in step side by side, 
but pushed on close together in a long 
narrow crowd of hundreds and hundreds. 
Forward they pressed without paying 
any attention to the frightened brown 



166 


"'OXDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 


ants. They were on their to a nest 

where some black ants lived. So on the; 
journeyed over the path, across a flower 
bed, under the hedge and zigzag over a 
broad rock to the foot of a tree. 

The black ants saw the red ants com- 
ing and began to run hither and thither. 
Some scampered away to hide in the grass 
or climb up weeds for safetv. Others 
scuttled into the nest and tried to cany 
the eggs and babies with them as the 
fled to the deeper rooms underground. 
The big red ants rushed up the hill and 
dashed in at the doorways Thev went 


a 

ers 
'■"' ere 

ZLTeZ.1 

have 


[»ht to the nurseries, but they did not 
the young ones. 

Tien they came out, some were carry- 
eggs; others had the soft little wrig- 
: ^onnlike babies in their jaws: oth- 
were holding the cocoons in which 
those ~ho were changing. Thev 
taking to their own home these chil- 
of the black ants so that they might 
servants to work for them. When 



HOUSE THE ANT BUILT 167 

the captives grew up, they took care of 
the^ red ants' eggs, and nursed their ba- 
bies, and kept the house clean. 

The brown ants, however, who had been 
busy with the molasses, knew nothing of 
this dreadful robbery. They never stole 
other ants' babies. They preferred to do 
their own work and attend to their own 
children. This was all the better for 
them, because work made them stronger 
and healthier, and very likely happier 
too, than the lazy ants who kept slaves. 

When the autumn days grew cooler the 
little brown ants seemed to become dull 
and drowsy. The mother ant laid fewer 
eggs. The nurses were less careful to 
carry the eggs from one room to another 
every day. The soft white squirming 
babies lay quiet, without eating, for hours 
at a time. The young ones, shut close in 
their cocoons, slept longer and longer. 
The workers who went out to find food 
for the nest moved more slowly and came 
trudging home sooner than they had done 



168 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

during the warm summer weather. The 
tiny green cows on the trees md plants were 
nipped with frost and died. But some of 
their e o a - had been taken away by the 
ants and hidden safe in the deep rooms 
underground, where the cold could not 
reach them. 

Winter clouds sifted snow over the ant- 
hill,, and icy winds blew through the bare 
garden. In their house with its winding 
galleries and wide halls the queen dozed 
beside a heap of her newest eggs. Now 
and then a nurse crawled slowly to the 
piles of seeds in the store-room, and took 
a listless nibble here and there. Then 
she crept back among the deeping babies 
to watch for any who might wake up 
hungry for a moment. 

When the spring sunshine thawed the 
frozen soil, the ant-hill began to stir with 
fresh life. The mother began to lay eggs 
ber. The babies began tc squirm and 
wriggle with impatience to be fed oftener. 
The sleeping young ones began to kick 



HOUSE THE ANT BUILT 169 

in their cradles, eager to escape. The 
busy workers ran to and fro in the big- 
gest kind of a hurry. 

No wonder that they felt nervous with 
all the work to do! What with caring for 
the eggs, and watching the babies, and 
cleaning the house, and digging new 
rooms, and hunting for food, and tending 
the little green cows, they were almost 
worn out before darkness gave them a 
chance to rest. Indeed, at some specially 
busy times they worked late into the 
night. 

This summer brought them an extra 
task. Among the young ants waking 
from their long sleep were a number of 
brothers and sisters with wings. These 
did not help with the work of the home. 
They did not even take care of them- 
selves, but were fed like babies. Once in 
a while they were coaxed to go outside 
and play in the fresh air. They crawled 
along a grass blade till it swayed up and 
down beneath their weight, while they 



170 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

clung to it as if swinging for fun. Some- 
times they chased each other around a 
pebble, or stood on their hind legs and 
waved their feelers and clashed their 
horny jaws. Perhaps they felt that it was 
much pleasanter to be a winged ant than 
a busy little worker always in a hurry- 
scurry over something that had to be 
done. 

But alas for their lazy days! One 
afternoon they were all driven from the 
nest, just as their mother had been pushed 
away from her first home the year before. 
The wingless ones nipped and prodded 
and poked them till they spread their 
filmy wings and flew up, up, up into the 
warm afternoon air. Swarms of winged 
ants from other nests joined them, and 
away they drifted, whirling and dancing 
with the breeze. 

After the joyous flight was over, here 
and there they dropped to the ground. 
But only a few from the hundreds in the 
flashing swarm lived to start new nests 



HOUSE THE ANT BUILT 171 

the next morning. Many of them had 
been snapped up by birds and bats and 
dragon-flies as they danced in the twi- 
light. Many had died of cold during the 
night or been gobbled by watchful spiders 
and solemn fat toads. Still, in spite of 
such perils, dozens and dozens of new lit- 
tle brown houses began to be built along 
the road and in the meadows that late 
summer. And back in the old nest by the 
garden path the little brown ants worked 
as busily as ever all day long. 



VIII 

HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY 
BEE 



VIII 

HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY 
BEE 

I. NO TIME TO PLAY 

THE young bee was beginning to 
wake up from her long sleep. She 
stirred uneasily. Her four filmy 
wings that lay folded damp and soft at her 
sides quivered, and her six slender legs un- 
curled their tiny claws. She lifted her head 
and moved it to and fro. Close around her 
pressed the smooth walls of the waxen cell 
of honeycomb in which she was lying. 

Two weeks earlier she had gone to sleep 
a fat little baby bee like a white worm, and 
now she was waking up a grown bee with 
wonderful big eyes for seeking gaily-col- 
ored blossoms, with a long tongue for suck- 
ing honey, with jointed feelers for touching 



176 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

and talking, with wings to bear her through 
the garden, and with legs that she could use 
for walking and clinging, for combing and 
brushing, and even, like baskets, for carry- 
ing the yellow pollen dust from the hearts 
of the flowers to the hive. 

Very likely she was not in the least sur- 
prised at the change, for bees always change 
in that way. It would have been most re- 
markable indeed if she had stayed just the 
same from the first day to the last of her 
nap. But if it had been you, that of course 
would be different. Suppose you should 
go to sleep a soft white worm and wake up 
a gauzy-winged bee? Wouldn't that be 
surprising ! 

Well, the first thing that young bee did 
with the little jaws of her new head was 
to bite a hole through the waxen curtain 
that covered the outer end of the honeycomb 
cell. Then she poked her head through 
and looked around with her big eyes. It 
was dark there in the middle of the hive. 
Above and below her stretched a wall of 



THE BUSY LITTLE BEE 177 

honeycomb from ceiling to floor. Opposite 
her, so near that she could almost touch 
it with her feelers, another wall like that 
in which she had lived all her baby life 
reached also from ceiling to floor. No 
wonder it was dark in that narrow passage, 
especially as the one little door of the hive 
was so far away beyond the nursery honey- 
combs that she could catch only a glimpse 
of a faint ray of light stealing in from the 
sunshiny morning outside. 

In the dusk around her something was 
moving. She could see dim forms of many 
bees crawling over the honeycomb. Two 
or three of them climbed up to her. One 
gnawed the hole bigger so that they could 
help her squeeze through to the outside. 
She clung there, weak and pale, digging 
her claws into the wax, while her nurses 
licked her with their tongues and brushed 
her with the brushes on their hind legs. 
Another brought a drop of honey and laid 
it in her mouth. As soon as she swallowed 
it, she began to feel stronger. It was her 



178 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVE- 

first taste of food since she had fallen asleep 
so many days before. 

While she rested, waiting for her wings 
to dry and her legs to cease their trembling, 
the muses pushed into her empty cell and 
cleaned away the bits of wax. the bee-bread, 
and the silken threads which she had spun 
over the inside of the door. They were 
making it ready for another egg out of 
which would hatch a new baby. After they 
had finished this work, they went creeping 
onward to other cells where other babies 
were lying, some squirming hungrily, some 
curling down for a nap. some ready to bite 
their way out. The new little nurse crawled 
after them. She did not even think of stop- 
ping to play a little while she was young. 
She was eager to begin to help with the 
work of the hive. 

Such a busy time as she had for the next 
week! There were hundreds and hundreds 
of babies, each in its own tiny cell. There 
were hundreds and hundreds of nurses, for 
every young bee went to work nursing as 



THE BUSY LITTLE BEE 179 

soon as she woke from her long sleep and 
found herself changed to a grown up bee. 
Nursing was the easiest work of all, and 
that was why the youngest ones did it till 
they were strong enough to go out to 
gather honey from the garden. 

However even the easiest work in the 
hive was not much like play, though it was 
certainly interesting. Our little bee had 
not a minute to spare. Now she poked her 
head in at the open end of a cell to see 
if the egg there had hatched yet. If a new 
baby was lying curled down in the end of 
the waxen cave, she reached down to lay 
her mouth against its lips and feed it with 
food already digested in her own stomach. 
This special food is called bee- jelly, and 
is fed to every baby worker for the first 
two days of its life, and to a queen all her 
life. 

Perhaps the next thing this nurse did 
was to climb to the honey-cells at the top 
of the hive to bring a drop of the sweet 
liquid to one of the older babies. Or it 



180 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

might be that her part was to visit the comb 
where the pollen dust was kept, and to 
carry a speck back to mix with honey to 
make bee-bread. Xow she packed a bit of 
bee -bread down beside a big baby who was 
ready to go to sleep. Then she aided in 
closing the open end of that cell with a 
curtain of wax so that the sleeper would 
not be disturbed dming the wonderful nap. 
Xow she clung in front of the closed cell 
and beat her wings till she felt hot enough 
to melt. The warmth of her body, added 
to the warmth from the other small nurses 
who were dancing and fluttering beside her, 
heated the air near them. This heat made 
the baby asleep behind the curtain change 
faster than while it was cool. A few mo- 
ments later she was hurrying with the oth- 
ers to help a newly awakened young bee 
out of the cell, to lick her furry coat, to 
brush her and comb her and lay a drop 
of honev on her tongue. 



THE BUSY LITTLE BEE 181 

II. OFF ON FLASHING WINGS 

And at last, after a busy week of this, 
how strange it was the first time she went 
flying! She did not go alone, for almost 
all the other nurses who were just her age 
started out the same day. Since the queen 
bee laid many dozens of eggs every day, 
of course dozens of babies hatched at about 
the same time and grew up together. Such 
a crowd of them as went creeping over the 
nursery honeycombs toward the entrance 
that sunshiny summer morning! 

They crawled out upon the platform in 
front of the door. Our little bee was afraid 
of the light at first. The two large black 
eyes on the sides of her head shone like 
jewels. These two remarkable eyes were 
really made up of six or seven thousand 
single eyes close together. In the middle 
of her forehead was a group of three simple 
eyes. No wonder the sunshine seemed daz- 
zling to her after the dusky shadows of the 
windowless hive! 



182 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

Perhaps she trembled for a moment and 
moved closer to her sisters. Surely the 
world outside the hive was very big and 
bright and terrible. Surely it would be 
safer to slip back again into the warm, dim, 
friendly darkness of the hive. It may be 
that she turned and lifted her wings to help 
her hurry faster. And then — and then — 
it was the queerest thing! Somehow the 
two upper wings hooked upon the two 
lower ones, and were held spread wide open. 
She flapped them once, twice, gave a little 
leap upward, and away she went sailing 
through the air. 

The fresh air flowed into her body 
through the tiny breathing holes on each 
side. This made her feel light and clean 
and joyous, even though she could not 
quite get over her instinctive fear of being 
separated from her sisters in the crowded 
hive. After a few circling flights over the 
bushes near-by, she alighted on the plat- 
form and, unhooking her wings, folded 
them as before and crept back to her work 



THE BUSY LITTLE BEE 183 

in the nursery honeycombs. It was not 
until a" week later that she set forth on her 
first visit to gather honey from the flowers 
in the garden. 

How sweet the air was that beautiful 
morning! Any bee could tell, just from 
smelling of it with her feelers, that flowers 
were unclosing gay petals from over their 
golden hearts everywhere in the garden. 
Our little bee crept out of the hive and 
paused on the platform. Did she know 
that she was going to get honey? Who 
had told her that she must seek it in a 
flower instead of in a waxen cell of honey- 
comb where she had always found it before? 
How did she know what a flower looked 
like? She had never yet seen one in bloom? 

Perhaps she did not know where she was 
going or what she was seeking? All that 
she knew was that she wanted somehow to 
spread her wings and fly away from the 
hive. Many bees were humming about the 
platform. Some were starting out and 
others were returning. Almost before she 



184 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

could make up her mind to follow one or 
another she found herself flitting upward. 
A moment later she circled and darted back 
again in fright. What if she should lose 
her way in the wide sea of light and air 
that reached to the skies? Again and again 
she set forth, only to swoop quickly home 
after a short timid flight. At last she rose 
high, with her head turned toward the hive, 
and hovered there, looking around at the 
garden below her. She wanted to be sure 
to remember the path back. Then off on 
flashing wings she went to her new work. 

III. HURRAH FOR THE HONEY ! 

This was different from pushing through 
the crowds in the dim shadowy hive. She 
went soaring, now up, now down, now in 
long dipping flight hither and thither! 
There was no danger here of bumps and 
bangs and bruises against other hairy little 
bodies crawling close together over the 
combs. 



THE BUSY LITTLE BEE 185 

Across the lawn she flew toward the 
flower beds. A fragrance floating upward 
made her feelers quiver. Her shining eyes 
saw spots of bright color where the mari- 
golds opened their yellow blossoms in the 
sunshine. Darting nearer she hovered 
above them, her wings buzzing against her 
body. Suddenly she dropped upon a blos- 
som and thrust her tongue down into its 
golden heart. Her little black tongue went 
wriggling in and out of its tube as she 
lapped up the honey in the flower. She 
swallowed the sweet liquid into her tiny 
honey-sac, and then flitted to another blos- 
som. 

When her sac, which held as much as a 
small drop, was full, she rose high above 
the marigolds and flew straight to the hive. 
Bees always take the quickest way through 
the air when they are headed for home; 
and that is why people call the shortest 
straightest path to anything a bee-line. 

When she reached the hive she crept in- 
side and went to empty her honey into one 



186 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

of the clean new wax cells near the edge 
of the comb. This fresh sweet juice, or 
nectar, is more watery than honey ought 
to be. So, while some of the bees keep 
bringing in nectar and pouring it into the 
cells, others work over it, fanning their 
wings to and fro just as the young nurses 
do to help warm the babies who are chang- 
ing in their sleep. The warmed air blows 
over the nectar and dries up part of the 
water. Then the bees squeeze from their 
heads a few drops of something that keeps 
the honey from spoiling. After that they 
cover each full cell with a thin curtain of 
wax to keep it safe for the winter. 

The next morning our little bee went 
out to gather pollen-dust for the nurses to 
mix with honey in making bee-bread for 
the babies. This time, instead of lapping 
up nectar, she tumbled about in the yellow 
center of a flower till the pollen grains 
stuck to the hairs on her legs and body. 
Then she rubbed the little stiff combs on 
her hind legs over her body and scraped 



THE BUSY LITTLE BEE 187 

off the pollen in two pasty balls. On the 
outside of each hind leg was a small hollow 
spot bordered with hairs. These were the 
baskets in which she carried the balls of 
pollen as she flew home. They were so 
heavy that they dragged her legs down. 
She had to flap her wings hard to travel 
with such a load. 

When in the hive again, she crawled to 
a cell near the nursery, and stood with her 
hind legs in it. She pushed off the balls 
of pollen with her middle legs, and other 
bees smoothed it down while she hurried 
out again to get more. On each journey 
she visited only one sort of flowers, so that 
the pollen in her baskets was all of the same 
kind. This was exactly what the flowers 
needed to help them to form good seeds, 
as you will learn when you study botany, 
but I cannot explain it to you now. 

After the young bee had worked a few 
days at gathering honey and collecting pol- 
len, she stayed in the hive one afternoon 
to make wax for new honeycombs. This 



InS wonderful little lives 



task really was hardest of all. though it 
looked easy enough. She climbed to the 
ceiling and hung there by the claws of her 

front legs. An- 
other bee crawled 
up and clung to 
her, and another 
caught hold of 
that one, and so on 
until there was a 
chain of bees 
hanging still in 
the dark. Others 
climbed up beside 
them and swung 
] : ~ni other chains 
:h tangled to- 
gether in a mass 
of little warm 
bodies. The 
longer they hung there, the wanner they 
r:r" Our bee felt drowsy and numb, wait- 
ing and waiting, aimos: ■sleep. Tiny claws 
of her sisters clutched her hair and her legs. 




THE BUSY LITTLE BEE 189 

She could hardly breathe in the close-packed 
crowd. 

And slowly, slowly, while she clung there 
without moving, four specks of wax formed 
in the four tiny pockets on the under side 
of her body. It was almost as if she per- 
spired wax instead of salty water, as you 
do. 

Then, one by one, the bees crawled out 
of the mass and took the scales of wax 
from their pockets and chewed them soft. 
The first one stuck her bit of a lump to 
the roof. The next one added her speck 
and the next and the next did the same, till 
there was a little knob of wax hanging 
from above. 

After that, another bee climbed up to it 
and scooped out a small hole on one side, 
while others scooped out a hole on the op- 
posite side. The wax-makers kept bringing 
more wax and building it on to the comb; 
and the other workers kept digging new 
cells. At last a whole new comb hung there 
ready to be filled with honey. 



190 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 



TV. MOVING DAY 

Meanwhile, back in the dark nursery, the 
big queen bee went creeping from empty 
cell to cell, and laying an egg in each one. 
A number of working bees followed her 
everywhere, feeding her on the purest 
honey, cleaning and brushing her, and 
watching her night and day. If anything 
should happen to the queen there would be 
no more eggs and no more babies to grow 
up and help with the work of the hive. 

Now, of course, a queen bee cannot live 
forever, even if she may live four or five 
years. It was wise to have a young queen 
ready to take her place whenever she might 
die. Generally there was more than one lit- 
tle princess growing in the hive. It was 
the oddest thing! When the bees wanted to 
have a new princess, they simply made a 
special big cell for one of the ordinary eggs. 
The baby who hatched from it was fed on 
bee- jelly all her life, instead of partly on 
bee-bread. And wonderful to think! Dur- 



THE BUSY LITTLE BEE 191 

ing her long sleep, instead of changing to 
a small worker with a tongue to suck honey 
from the flowers, with brushes on her feet, 
with pollen-baskets on her legs, and with 
wax-pockets on her body, she waked up a 
big queen who could do nothing except lay 
eggs. 

It chanced one day that a young princess 
was ready to gnaw her way out of her cell, 
while the old queen was still living. There 
is never room for two queens in one hive, 
so what do you suppose they did? The old 
queen flew away with thousands of the 
workers to begin a new home. 

This was how it happened. The hive 
was getting more and more crowded every 
day as more young bees kept gnawing out 
of their cells. Our little bee could hardly 
push through her sisters who were creeping 
about the doorway. Her neck fairly ached 
from prodding those in front of her this 
way and that. While she was busy empty- 
ing her baskets of pollen, the hurrying 
nurses bumped into her. When she brought 



192 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

in honey, the lazy drone bees, who never 
worked, jostled against her in their greedy 
haste to steal a mouthful. If she was busy 
cleaning the floor or plastering up cracks 
with gum from certain plants, she had to 
step aside every moment to let one or an- 
other pass. Whenever her task was to help 
keep the air fresh by standing near the door 
and clutching the floor with her claws while 
she beat her wings to and fro, somebody 
was always banging into her. It seemed 
as if she really did not have room to turn 
around except when she could escape into 
the wide spaces of the garden. 

One beautiful morning our little bee 
awoke as usual and crept toward the door 
in readiness to set forth to gather honey. 
But those who generally guarded the en- 
trance and greeted every passer with a wave 
of their feelers seemed to be excited over 
something. They were running to and fro 
nervously. Others were crawling in and 
out without bringing any burden from the 
flowers. Behind her in the hive thousands 



THE BUSY LITTLE BEE 193 

of bees began to suck honey from the open 
cells where it was stored. Each one took 
enough to last several days, for they would 
have no time to visit the garden when they 
were starting their new home. 

After a while some of them spread their 
wings and began to fly round and round 
inside the hive. The queen rushed from 
the nursery and dashed hither and thither 
as if she were crazy. Finally she ran 
through the doorway and, lifting her wings, 
flew upward. Pouring outs after her came 
the throng of her followers. They flew 
with her, circling and drawing closer and 
closer in a swarm of vibrating little bodies 
and glistening gauzy wings. When the 
queen alighted on a tree and held quiet, the 
others came to rest around her and hung 
there, clinging to one another in a living 
cluster. 

Presently a few of the bees loosened their 
hold and started off to hunt for a hollow 
in a tree or wall where they could live, plas- 
tering up the cracks and hanging curtains 



194 WONDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

of fresh honeycomb for a nursery and store 
rooms. 

Meanwhile back in the old hive our little 
bee found herself amid those who had 
stayed behind. Then indeed she had to 
work harder than ever in her life. Though 
the workers were so much fewer than be- 
fore, there were just as many babies wait- 
ing to be fed, just as many greedy drones 
eager to steal honey. A new queen was 
almost ready to begin to lay eggs. And 
besides all that, more honey must be gath- 
ered and stored for the winter that was 
coming. 

V. WATTING FOB SPRING 

As the davs became cooler, the bees did 

•/ * 

not work so hard as during the summer 
weather. The queen laid fewer eggs. The 
babies slept more and ate less. There was 
no need to build new combs, for little honey 
could be found in the stray flowers that still 
bloomed in the garden. One morning, after 
a frosty night, our bee crawled slowly from 



THE BUSY LITTLE BEE 195 

the door and flew toward the marigold bed. 
The blossoms hung wilted and blackened 
on bent stems. After hovering over them 
a moment, she flitted back home. 

There was plenty of room inside now, 
even more than at the time when so many 
of her sisters had swarmed away following 
the old queen. Since then the drones had 
been driven out of the hive, and had died 
of cold and hunger. The workers knew 
that they would need all the honey in the 
combs to keep them alive through the win- 
ter. They had none to spare for feeding 
greedy drones who had never helped gather 
a grain of pollen or drop of nectar all sum- 
mer. 

Finally winter came in earnest. An icy 
wind rattled the bare branches of the trees. 
Snow sifted down over the shrivelled plants 
in the garden. It covered the earthworm's 
burrow, and lay deep and soft above the 
spot where grasshopper eggs were buried. 
Mosquito wigglers hid in the mud at the 
bottom of the pond in the meadow. Here 



196 WOXDERFUL LITTLE LIVES 

and there in the sheltered crotch of a limb, 
or rolled within a doubled-up leaf, the co- 
coons of different kinds of butterflies hung 
waiting for spring. In the house a few 
flies crept behind the pictures or slipped 
into a crack till the warm weather should 
make them feel like coming out to go again 
a-buzzing. Spiders slept in their holes or 
curled up in the middle of thick webs. The 
ants moved about dully in their under- 
ground houses. Within the hive the bees 
clung together in a great cluster around 
a comb full of honey. 

Our little bee happened to be next to 
the honey. When she was hungry she 
sipped a drop and then passed on a mouth- 
ful or two to those behind her. From one 
to another the sweet food travelled till all 
were fed. When that comb was empty, 
they moved to the next, crawling over each 
other. Sometimes our bee was snug in the 
center, with the many wings around her 
slowly beating to and fro to keep the air 
warm. Sometimes she found herself swing- 



THE BUSY LITTLE BEE 197 

ing in the outermost row. When too chilly 
there, she pushed and scrambled farther 
into the close crowded mass. 

Slowly the winter hours dragged on and 
on and on. Drowsy, barely stirring, half 
alive, the bees clung together, waiting for 
spring to bring the flowers in the beautiful 
garden. 






19'' 



CONGRESS 




